


in the woods somewhere

by stammiviktor



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, M/M, Meet-Cute... of sorts, Torture, Touch-Starved, Trauma Recovery, mentions of plague, non-graphic descriptions of past violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:07:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21598156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammiviktor/pseuds/stammiviktor
Summary: One evening in late autumn, Yuuri goes out to collect firewood. He returns with a man instead.(Viktor, Yuuri, and the end of isolation.)
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 125
Kudos: 389





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so so sooo much to [Kaz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kazul9) for beta-ing and hyping me up through this process!!
> 
> (it has been [0] days since i last titled a fic with a hozier lyric)

Just before dinner, Yuuri goes out to gather firewood. When he finally returns, the sun will have long since set, and the logs he gathered will still be out there on the forest floor—but he won’t be empty-handed.

He fells only one tree; he won’t need more than that for the next few weeks. He has only just started chopping it into logs when Vicchan, who had previously been sniffing his way through the nearby underbrush, gives a loud yip and takes off toward the west. 

_“Vicchan!_ Stop!”

Yuuri slings his axe over his back and sprints after his dog, the autumn air whipping at his face. Vicchan is tinier than any other dog Yuuri had ever seen—he’s fully-grown yet the size of most puppies. Still, he runs twice as fast as Yuuri, who trips over tree roots and jagged stones as he clambers after him. Vicchan barks and Yuuri calls out to him, all while sincerely hoping that whatever Vicchan is chasing will actually make a good meal. _Please, Vicchan, not another squirrel._

Yuuri bursts through a thicket, thorns catching on his clothes, and suddenly finds himself in a small clearing. Vicchan’s barking has stopped. In the heart-pounding silence, Yuuri scans the clearing for his dog’s brown curls and finds him just off to the left, licking a man’s face.

A man. An unconscious man, bloodied and half-naked and _chained to a tree._ The bottom falls out of Yuuri’s stomach and he’s running again before he’s even made up his mind—running _toward,_ not away, though every instinct in his body is telling him to flee. 

Up close, the image only becomes more gruesome. The man has been slumped forward against the tree, his wrists chained around the trunk and his cheek resting low against the bark. His ragged clothes, once probably a light khaki, have been stained dark brown where long-dried blood seeped through in stripes over his back—destruction wrought, no doubt, by lash after lash after lash. Everywhere Yuuri looks, he sees jagged, skeletal edges: protruding vertebrae, sunken cheekbones, sharply-angled shoulders; a body made of pallid skin wrapped tightly around bone. His shoulder-length hair is grey and as lifeless as the rest of him.

And yet, despite all of this, he is young. So young, barely older than Yuuri himself. The air is crisp and cool, yet Yuuri feels like he’s suffocating. His fingers tremble as he crouches down and reaches out to take a pulse, preparing himself to find nothing but cold, dead skin. 

Then Vicchan yips again, nuzzling into the man’s neck and licking kisses up his jaw. A sudden shiver wracks the man’s skeletal frame.

Yuuri jerks his hand backward as if burnt and watches as the man fights to open his eyes just a fraction. Vicchan yips again, snuggling even closer. A quiet groan rumbles from the man’s chest; his lips, split and bruised, move into a sad and ghastly smile. 

In a cracked voice, he mutters, “Good girl.”

Horror strikes like lightning in Yuuri’s chest, rattling his bones and sending a wave of nausea up his throat. Yuuri has not encountered another person in two full years, but now that the sheer shock of it all has worn off and his fight-or-flight response is under control, he can clearly see what’s in front of him, what’s at stake; what has happened and what has been _suffered._

Yuuri will never stop seeing that broken smile—that desperate little vestige of tenderness in a man left for dead. Yuuri’s hands dance helplessly in front of him, searching for something—anything—he could do to comfort and reassure short of immediately taking his axe to the man’s chains. He settles for laying his palm gently on his upper arm, a patch of skin with no injuries, cold like frosted glass. The man twitches and his eyes open fully, revealing ocean-blue pools of delirium, searching feverishly for the source of the touch.

“Hello,” Yuuri says quite feebly. He clears his throat. “My name is Yuuri. I’m going to help you, okay?”

The man mouths _Yuuri_ like it’s a question, but no sound comes out. 

“What’s your name?”

 _“Ngh,”_ the man moans. “No. Won’t… No.”

Yuuri gulps. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me.”

The man mutters something unintelligible. All Yuuri hears are his own name, and then the last two words: “protect him.”

“It’s okay. Just relax, I’m going to get you free.”

Yuuri stands and slings his axe off of his back, panicky mind honing in on the task at hand. He tunes out everything but the iron manacles on the man’s battered wrists and the chain connecting them around the trunk of the tree. He won’t be able to free him entirely, but he can break the chain as close to the manacles as possible without risking injury. With only four swings of his axe—he’s gotten a lot of practice, living like this—the chain shatters on either side, and the man’s arms fall limp to the forest floor. He starts to pitch sideways but Yuuri grabs him swiftly by the shoulders. The man hisses in pain. 

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Yuuri pleads. Shame tightens in his chest but he fights it back. This is the best he can do, and the sooner he accepts that, the better.

It’s hard not to feel horribly inadequate, however, as he struggles to lift the man from the ground. He groans as his wounds stretch and chafe against his clothing, but Yuuri cannot heal them. Yuuri cannot take away his pain, or even just transport him in a gentler way that would minimize his suffering. Yuuri is just _Yuuri,_ and he does what he can, though right now more than normal it feels like decidedly _not enough._

“I’m sorry,” he grunts as he gracelessly pulls the delirious man onto his back and starts off on the half-hour hike back to the log cabin he calls home. 

The sun sets early at this time of year and with nighttime comes the biting chill. Yuuri’s body is hot from exertion but the man on his back shivers violently. Yuuri had gone hungry once, last winter during an unexpected blizzard when he hadn’t stockpiled nearly enough food; he remembers clearly how impossible it felt to get warm, no matter how many furs he layered or how close he sat to the fire. This is worse, so much worse. Spirits know how long this man had been left like this, but he is painfully light on Yuuri’s back. His breath is shallow in Yuuri’s ear. 

A fire is still smoldering in the hearth when they finally return to Yuuri’s one-room cabin. He throws in two more logs, half of his remaining supply, and prays it will be enough to get them through the night. Yuuri deposits the man lightly on his stomach on Yuuri’s own futon in front of the fire, brushing the scraggly grey hairs from his eyes, and begins heating both a pot of water and some soup left-over from lunch. He grabs a washcloth, soaks it in hot water, and sets to work cleaning the man’s wounds.

The sound he makes when Yuuri strips the bloodied scraps of clothing from his back is horrifying, pulled from somewhere deep inside him no one was ever meant to see. Yuuri forces his trembling hands to steady themselves and do their job. He whispers, _shhh,_ in a facsimile of a soothing voice and continues on. Slowly, the man’s cries go quiet and his tense muscles go limp. Yuuri begs the spirits that he won’t remember this when he wakes from this fevered haze. 

Yuuri keeps an eye out for signs of infection as he wipes the brownish blood from angry, open wounds, but miraculously finds nothing life-threatening. The man relaxes into the soothing motion, and for a moment, Yuuri thinks he might have finally fallen unconscious. 

And then he mumbles, _“Yuuri…”_

Yuuri freezes. What a strange way this man pronounces his name. Yuuri wonders, not for the first time this evening, where he could have come from.

Yuuri hums. “Yes, I’m here.”

“You shouldn’t... _ngh._ Leave, you need… need to...”

“It’s alright now. Everything is alright.”

“M’sorry, Yuuri, I’m so sorry, so sorry…”

Yuuri’s stomach turns itself inside out. This man speaks his name in that strange accent like he knows him and Yuuri doesn’t know what this means. He doesn’t understand. “You don’t have to be sorry,” he says weakly. “It’s no trouble.”

With a sudden, fleeting bit of energy, the man lifts his head from the blanket and looks back at Yuuri. His blue eyes shine with unseeing, reddened desperation. 

“Yuuri, leave,” he begs. He raises a weakened arm from his side, grasping at thin air. The three chain links still attached to the iron cuff rattle their heavy reminder. “You _need_ _to_ leave me.”

His strength gives out as soon as the words leave his mouth, his head and searching hand falling back to the ground. He can’t see Yuuri anymore, can’t see him shake his head or flounder, mouth open, for a response that won’t come. His mother would know what to say. His father, too, in his own way—spirits, even Mari would have known how to deal with this infinitely better than he has. Helplessness twists his gut into knots as he looks down at those stick-thin arms weighed down by chains he can’t remove. Thirty open lash wounds stare up at him. He doesn’t even know this man, doesn’t know if he’s a criminal or a victim of circumstance or a political prisoner or _anything,_ just that he’s the kind of man who would smile at a puppy as he lay dying and beg _leave me, you need to—_

“No one deserves to be left like that.” 

Yuuri waits with bated breath for a reply, but the man is quiet: unconscious, finally, mercifully. He will have to wake him in a few hours to drink some broth, but for now he can sleep. 

Yuuri finishes cleaning the man’s wounds—the welts on his back, his split lip and brow, his raw-chafed wrists—and applies a soothing salve that Minako-sensei made him years ago to ease pain and prevent infection. He can do nothing about the bruises that litter the man’s body, but he spreads a thin layer of the salve over his chest and down his arms to soothe the angry red scratches from struggling against the bark of the tree trunk. Then he digs a long length of clean cloth from his trunk and wraps it tightly around the man’s torso, and stuffs another smaller piece beneath the manacles that still encircle his wrists. 

Finally, he lays a quilt his mother made him over the man’s sleeping frame. He sits back next to the fire, facing the door with his axe in hand and Vicchan sitting dutifully at his side. Whatever danger this gentle, grey-haired man was so afraid of, whatever cruelty he feared would return for him—Yuuri will protect him from it all.

—

Death is in no hurry to claim Viktor Nikiforov. En route for months now, it has meandered about on its way to meet him, traveling in circles and biding its time until the inevitable arrival.

At least that is how Viktor has come to think of it over the past year. He knows there is no such thing as a spirit of Death, because Death is nothingness: an absence, a lack, a disintegration into the earth. He saw this with his parents years ago, and with so many others as the epidemic raged. But it is easier to think of Death as a spirit wandering toward him with measured steps, slowly but surely closing the distance between them, than it was to think of the man who truly holds Viktor’s life in the palm of his hands, waiting for the opportune moment to extinguish it. It is easier to think of Death as a claiming, a meeting, than it is to think of that helpless cell; of the mildewed darkness; of the wasting away. 

He does not know if he should consider it a mercy that, now that it’s finally time, he’s been allowed to waste away in the sunlight.

Even now, Death moves painfully slowly, but there’s nothing Viktor can do to speed it up. He only tries twice to free himself from the tree he’s been tethered to before deciding it is futile. The tree is sturdy, and he does not bother with the manacles. After a year, he knows they have no weak points.

At least he now knows that it has been a year. The air is crisp and the leaves on the trees have almost all fallen, a few orange ones drifting down on him from above. It will soon be his twentieth birthday. For so long he had wondered, shut up in underground darkness, how much time had passed, and he had tried to tell himself it didn’t matter. Now, with his pale and sunken skin basked in autumn sunlight, he finds it matters to him a great deal. At least he _knows._

The pain doesn’t reach him anymore; he just floats around inside himself and waits. Perhaps it’s the fear that has kept him alive this long. After a week of the refrain _never, I’ll never tell you, nevernevernever,_ all he can hear in his mind is the secret he bled for, screamed himself hoarse for, on a ceaseless loop.

_Yuri, Yuri, it was Yuri, it was Yuri._

Green eyes, wide in shock and horror and fury, looking down at him from a tiny barred window. Leave, leave, you have to leave, you _have to leave_

A dog is licking his face. A poodle, brown, no more than a puppy, and he should tell her to go too but his resolve melts entirely. “Good girl,” he croaks, wishing he had the strength to pet her like she deserves. The warmth from her fur against his neck is enough. 

“My name is Yuri,” someone says. There’s a sweet, desperate face that Viktor doesn’t know, but he knows Yuri, and he knows he came back for him. He doesn’t have the wherewithal to be upset about this at the moment.

Just down the winding forest path, Death comes to a sudden halt, turns on its heel and meanders away. 

—

When Viktor wakes, the only thing he recognizes are the cuffs on his wrists. Even then, they feel unfamiliar—someone has wrapped cloth under rusting iron. He cannot feel the cold metal against his skin, and it’s oddly unsettling. He tries to yank the chain taut, but his arm goes flying toward his face when he meets no resistance, colliding with his jaw. He flinches.

All around him is warmth and soft blankets. In front of his eyes, a fire flickers and a sleepy poodle stirs, startled awake by the rattling of the remaining chainlinks at Viktor’s wrists.

The dog yips. She sounds nothing like Makkachin. 

“Oh, you’re awake.”

Viktor whips his head around. The man standing behind him holds a steaming bowl. There’s a foggy familiarity about him that sets Viktor’s nerves further on edge. 

“Where am I?” His voice cracks. As he sits up, he takes stock of his surroundings. The room is relatively small, with wooden floors and classic log-cabin walls. Thick curtains have been drawn over the windows, sunlight peeking through at the corners.

“My cabin.”

“Yes. I see. But I…” Viktor’s eyes flicker around the room, immediately pinpointing the door. It doesn’t look locked and the man isn’t blocking his path. He looks nice, Viktor judges quickly. His eyes are kind, rich like the earth, and something flashes in the back of Viktor’s mind. The memories are nebulous things, dispersing beneath his fingertips, but they’re there. 

Hands on him, gentle hands that brought momentary pain and impossible comfort; the soothing trail of hot water on his back; those _eyes,_ so clearly searching for ways to help. He remembers being shaken awake, a palm at the base of his head holding him up, the fragrant broth that had burnt his tongue. Perhaps that’s what’s in the bowl, more soup. His collapsing stomach flips and his throat burns for water. 

“Yuri,” Viktor breathes, remembering. “Your name is Yuri?”

“Yes, Yuuri,” the man replies, though he pronounces it subtly different. 

“Ah.” Viktor swallows. His head hurts. “And who… who are you?”

Yuuri’s eyebrows knit together. He sits down on the floor, his legs folded in front of him and the bowl of soup placed in his lap. “I’m not anybody. I mean— I’m just Yuuri.”

“...Right.”

“And this is Vicchan, who I believe you’ve met.”

Vicchan the poodle curls up in the space between them, demanding attention. Viktor runs his fingers through the puppy’s fur. “A very good dog,” Viktor agrees. He startles when Yuuri laughs.

“He’s the best dog. Though very needy.” After a moment of quiet, Yuuri clears his throat. “What’s, ah— you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but what’s your name?”

What a strange thing to say. Strange, and somehow wonderful.

“Viktor. It’s Viktor.”

Yuuri blinks, nods, and says, “Viktor. Okay. How are you feeling? Can you drink more broth?”

Viktor considers this, or tries to, at least. His body doesn’t quite feel like his. None of this quite feels like _his—_ not his memories, not his experiences, not this reality. The pain is like noise, a thin buzz in the background that’s perceptible but easily ignored. He’s chilly because he’s always chilly, but the room around him exudes an aura of warmth that wraps around him like a blanket. 

He’s not sure what to do with any of this, so he holds out his hands and accepts the bowl of broth. After the first sip floods his mouth, he has to use all his self-control not to down it all at once. The surface ripples as his hands tremble.

“I don’t know how much you remember…”

Viktor swallows. “Enough. I suppose.” He’s here, in a stranger’s cabin in the middle of the woods he was brought to to die. He’s not dead and he’s not dying and there are still chains hanging from his wrists but he is— His mind trips over the word “free”. Disbelief lingers. 

“I don’t… I don’t know what happened or who did this. I don’t think I need to. But you seemed very scared when I brought you back, and if you’re still in danger—”

“No. There’s no danger.”

Yuuri nods politely and unconvincingly. “Right.”

“They won’t come back.” Viktor forces what he means to be a nonchalant smile, but he feels like a snake trying to crawl back into a skin he’d long since shed. Yuuri looks at him like he’s in pain. 

“Spirits, Viktor. I’m so sorry.”

Viktor hides his mouth behind the bowl. Yuuri does not need to see the way he crumples under the pity he once would have resented. “That’s not— you’re— don’t. You don’t need to.”

Yuuri won’t look at him either. “I know. But what else is there to say?”

Viktor swallows. What else, indeed? 

Yuuri clears his throat, gesturing to the foot of the futon beneath Viktor. “There’s a sweater and some loose pants for you. I don’t know if they’ll fit but…”

“Thank you,” he offers, quite feebly. He does not yet understand that this has happened, that he’s not still chained to a tree somewhere out there in the universe, but the gratitude he feels is real and burning a hole in his stomach. 

He drinks the rest of his broth. Yuuri smiles softly.

—

Viktor spends most of his time in the cushioned chair by the fire, hypnotized by the flickering flames as he allows his body time to heal. Sleep helps when he can manage it, as do the regular, nutritious meals Yuuri supplies for him. After two days, the chill seems to have been banished from Viktor’s body for good—no small miracle considering how long it had lived deep in the marrow of his bones. The handmade sweater and quilt cocoon him like a small child, entirely new to this world.

But he is not a child; he has not been one for a long time. He had once been trusting to a fault, but now, as he gets to know this strange new environment, suspicion begins spinning a web in his gut.

Who is this man, Yuuri, who lives deep in the woods with only his dog for company? He spends his days hunting, preserving, cooking, washing, and knitting—preparing for the coming winter, it seems. He does not appear to own any books. He just… lives out here. Sustains himself and nothing more. _Alone._

Viktor, who once spent hours screaming at the top of his lungs just to _hear something_ that wasn’t his own thoughts, does not know what to make of this choice. He does not trust it.

But Yuuri isn’t technically alone, Viktor supposes. He talks to the puppy—who Viktor discovers is actually a fully grown dog, though Viktor will continue to call him a puppy—as if he were a human being, narrating his day as he goes. It’s charming, actually. Listening to Yuuri talk to Vicchan staves off the boredom in a nice, passive way that Viktor greatly appreciates. He’s not sure he could sustain a conversation with Yuuri for very long right now. What would they even talk about? 

_“No,_ Vicchan, down. We’ve talked about this, yarn is not a toy. I can make you a sweater if you want, but this one is for Viktor.”

Viktor blinks, jerking from his listless reverie. “It’s— what?”

“Oh.” Yuuri blushes. “Well, that one is a bit small on you.”

Viktor holds out an arm, the material riding up past his chained wrist. Weakly, he protests, “It fits.”

“Sweaters are meant to be large. Your shoulders are broader than mine, and you’re taller, too. Trust me, it, um— this one will be better.”

Viktor swallows. “Oh. Well. Thank you.” Yuuri has been working on this sweater since yesterday for hours at a time. He could have been doing literally anything else with his evening, but here he is, _knitting Viktor a sweater._

Vicchan abandons the yarn he had been batting between his paws to cross the room and sit at the base of Viktor’s chair by the fire. He looks up at Viktor with expectant puppy eyes.

“Do you want up?”

“He definitely wants up,” Yuuri replies, not looking up from his stitching. “If you just ignore him, he’ll leave you alone.”

Viktor already has the puppy in his lap before Yuuri finishes his sentence. Vicchan’s tongue lolls in delight as Viktor scratches behind his ears, flopping over Viktor’s lap like a ragdoll. He doesn’t seem to mind the cold, heavy chain-links that lay against his body as Viktor pets him.

 _“Oh,”_ Yuuri exclaims when he looks up, probably upon hearing the little cooing noise that escapes from Viktor involuntarily. “He really likes you. He’s not usually… Well, he’s not used to other people.”

“Dogs love me.” Viktor looks up at Yuuri and flashes a smile.

Yuuri grins. “It seems so.”

It’s right about then that the suspicion Viktor had previously regarded as healthy flees his mind entirely, never to be seen again. He tries half-heartedly to keep some of it back, to ensure he doesn’t drop his guard too far down—he won’t make the same mistake twice. But, well, Yuuri has a very sweet smile, very kind eyes, and has a _very_ lovely dog. 

Trust, for once, comes easily. And so a few minutes later, when Yuuri puts down his knitting and asks if Viktor would allow him to change his bandages, Viktor says yes without hesitation. Relief floods Yuuri’s eyes almost instantly; he’d clearly been afraid to ask. Viktor finds himself filled with an inexplicable need to soothe his worry.

Viktor pats Vicchan’s head lovingly and places him on the ground before standing. As Yuuri fetches clean rags, Viktor takes off the too-small sweater and grabs the end of the long cloth Yuuri had used as a bandage, unwrapping it from around his torso. He peels the final layer away from his back with a low hiss. 

“Oh, wait, let me— I can do that,” Yuuri insists.

“I’ve got it.” The soiled bandages fall to the floor. Viktor doesn’t look.

Yuuri holds out a hand, providing Viktor with leverage to lower himself onto the futon by the fire. He lays on his stomach, naked back exposed, and buries his face in his bent arms. There is already a pot of water heating over the fire that Yuuri used to make tea earlier, and Viktor hears droplets splattering against the hearth as Yuuri dips the rag in the water and wrings out the excess.

A stripe of heat lays itself over Viktor’s upper back and he flinches violently.

“Tell me if it hurts. I’ll stop.”

“No, it’s fine, it doesn’t—” Viktor cuts himself off with a hiss. Yuuri pulls away.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I was just surprised,” Viktor insists. “It doesn’t hurt. I promise.”

He’s not lying—it really doesn’t hurt. The wet heat of the rag is unsettling but soothing, a sweet luxury compared to the burning that ravaged him when the whip tore him apart. Still, those memories live far too close to the surface. With every touch, they threaten to break through. 

What makes the difference, in the end, is Yuuri. The first few passes of the rag over his shoulders makes Viktor tense, but he soon finds himself anticipating the touch without any hint of dread. He waits with bated breath while Yuuri rinses the cloth again, exhaling only when he feels the wet heat spread gently over his back. He never looks up to see the damage, keeping his face buried in his bent arms with his matted hair covering his eyes, but he imagines brownish blood coming away from his skin, leaving his body clean under Yuuri’s hands.

“I have this salve that my godmother gave me. It’s supposed to protect from infection and numb the pain. Is it alright if I…?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Let me just…” Yuuri pulls away for a moment, grabbing a jar from the countertop. He sits back down at Viktor’s side and begins carefully spreading the paste over Viktor’s entire back. It is cool to the touch, leaving the slightest tingling sensation as it settles against his skin. He shivers, sinking into the strangely delightful feeling.

“Viktor?”

“Hm?”

“I finished.”

Viktor lifts his head. “Oh. Right, yes. Sorry.”

“If you sit up, I have a clean cloth. To bandage it back up, I mean.” 

Bringing himself back to the present, Viktor does as he’s told and sits up, extending his arms to the side to allow Yuuri to rebandages his torso.

When Yuuri finishes, he steps back. Immediately, his eyes widen. “Oh, your wrists.”

Viktor looks out at his arms. “My wrists,” he repeats.

“I should clean those, too.”

“Oh. I could—”

“Really, Viktor, it’s okay. Let me.”

They sit together, cross-legged before the fire, knees so close they nearly touch. Viktor rests his hands in Yuuri’s lap and takes shallow breaths as Yuuri unravels the bandages that rest beneath the manacles. The second the iron touches Viktor’s bare skin, he winces. After only a few days, he somehow managed to forget what it felt like, so cold and unforgiving.

Yuuri tries his best to maneuver around the metal cuffs to clean the red-raw skin beneath them. For the most part, he succeeds. Viktor tries to concentrate on the lithe movements of Yuuri’s fingers, tracking them in the air and against Viktor’s skin; the way they slide over his forearms, the palms of his hands, his dry knuckles. It’s quite an effective distraction. 

Yuuri spreads the salve over his wrists then rewraps them with clean cloth. Viktor quietly prepares himself to be without his touch. 

“I tried,” Yuuri mutters apologetically. Viktor frowns.

“What?” 

“To get them off. I tried, but I don’t have tools for working with metal. Just an axe, and I couldn’t risk it. I’m sorry.”

“No, Yuuri, please,” Viktor objects. “You’ve done enough. I can deal with it.”

Yuuri recoils, releasing Viktor’s hands unceremoniously. The remaining chain-links jangle against each other as Viktor pulls them back into his lap. 

“You can’t live like this,” Yuuri says.

Viktor’s stomach twists, something acrid creeping at the base of his throat. 

“Trust me, Yuuri. I have lived with far worse.”

Guilt springs instantly to Yuuri’s eyes. “No, that’s not what I meant, I just— You shouldn’t have to, not where there might be a way to get them off.”

“How?”

Yuuri pauses for a moment. “The Forest Guardians.”

“...Spirits?”

“They have... spiritual powers,” Yuuri admits, face set in a neutral expression but his voice betraying his reluctance. “They live a week's walk into the forest, through the mountains. It’s closer than any human settlement, and even then, there’s no guarantee a human settlement would have metalworkers. It’s risky, but...”

“I will go, then.”

Something flashes in Yuuri’s eyes. “Not alone. It’s dangerous.”

“All the more reason for you not to go.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’d need a guide, and you can still barely walk as it is.”

“I’ll wait until I heal completely, then.”

“Winter will have set in, and there are snowstorms in the mountains. You’ll need to leave within a week or two at the most, or wait until Spring. I’m going with you.” 

There’s steel behind his eyes that tells Viktor not to argue, so he finally concedes to Yuuri’s offer. Still, there is no happiness in his expression, nothing but stone-faced resolve—and perhaps, if Viktor looks closely, a hint of dread. 

—

The futon Viktor sleeps on belongs to Yuuri. That much is obvious—he’s the only one who lives here, after all. Of course, Viktor had offered to switch with him the moment he noticed. Yuuri flat-out refused. Instead, before bed each night, Yuuri removes the three handmade cushions from his chairs and arranges them in a row by Viktor and the fire. He curls up slightly to fit on them, feet still hanging over the edge. 

But he doesn’t look uncomfortable, Viktor observes one night when sleep eludes him. After hours of counting the logs on the ceiling, then watching the logs in the fireplace turn to ash, he takes to watching Yuuri. He matches his own breaths to the rise and fall of Yuuri’s shoulders, hoping to trick his body to sleep, but he finds such deep breaths unduly difficult.

Instead, his gaze falls to Yuuri’s face and he lets himself linger, soaking in the sweet somnolence of his parted lips and unwrinkled brow. He studies Yuuri with silent wonder that makes him realize, quite suddenly, that he’s never seen anything like this before. Who has ever fallen asleep at his side, relaxed in dreams an arm’s length away from him? The answer, when he truly considers it, is _no one._ In many ways, Viktor has been alone since he was sixteen; in others, he’s been on his own far longer. 

Firelight flickers across Yuuri’s face, a perfect picture of trust and peace, close enough to touch. Viktor won’t, he couldn’t possibly, but he _could,_ just like Yuuri could reach out to him if he so cared to.

And it’s this, the presence of another body so near to him, so warm and kind and trusting, that finally lulls him to sleep. 

—

“Let me help.”

Yuuri looks up, his knife pausing just above an autumn squash he’d brought in from the garden. “You should be resting.”

“Please, Yuuri, I’m so bored.”

“Oh. Well… Do you know how to cook?”

“Not at all. But I’d love to learn!” Viktor beams, and even from halfway across the cabin he can hear Yuuri’s breath stutter. 

Yuuri schools his expression quickly. “Have you ever used a knife?”

“Of course. I’m trained in sword fighting.”

“That is not the same thing and you know it. Hold out your hand.”

Viktor does. His fingers tremble ever so slightly, and it only gets worse when he tries to still them. 

“You’ll slice off your fingers with a tremor like that.”

“I’m just cold.”

“You’re healing.”

“Fine.” Viktor stands from his chair by the fire and walks over to Yuuri’s workbench. He places his hands flat on the countertop. “What else could I do?”

Yuuri’s eyes are wide. He clears his throat. “Well, you could arrange everything in the pot as I chop it up. I’m moving on to the meat next. And you could add a couple spoonfuls of some of those spices over there,” he adds, pointing to a collection of small glass jars half-full of fine powders.

“Perfect!”

Viktor’s mind quiets the instant he sets to work helping Yuuri, every thought and movement infused with purpose he hadn’t known in a very long time. They’re small jobs, mostly foolproof and very quickly finished, but Viktor takes his time and pays attention to every trivial detail. The meat and vegetables will all become mixed in the stew once it begins to cook, but Viktor lays them carefully in the pot in neat concentric circles. Viktor expects Yuuri to laugh when he notices, but instead he seems oddly charmed.

“Which spices?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri pauses with his knife halfway through a chunk of venison. “You could taste them and decide, if you want.”

“Yuuri. I will _definitely_ screw that up.”

“I’ll make sure you don’t do anything crazy.”

His worries mostly assuaged, Viktor takes off the lids of the six jars and begins pinching little bits of powder to taste. A different flavor explodes on his tongue each time—salty or herbaceous or warm like cinnamon. One sends Viktor into a coughing fit.

“Oh, sorry. I should have warned you about that one.”

“What _is_ that?”

“A type of pepper,” Yuuri explains, already grabbing Viktor a cup of water. “A very potent pepper.”

“And you _like_ this? My mouth is on fire!”

“It’s delicious once you get used to it… and when it’s actually cooked into food. ”

Viktor downs the entire cup of water at once. His chest aches from coughing. But he ends up adding a pinch of the spice to the stew in the end, fascinated by the foreign burn stretching all the way down his throat. Yuuri watches carefully as Viktor adds the other spices, prompting him to add more or less of the ones he picked. Then Yuuri fills the pot to the rim with water, covers it with a lid, and carries it over to the fire to cook. It looks heavy; his muscles ripple beneath his handmade sweater.

“How did you learn to cook?” Viktor asks when they finally sit down on the floor to rest side-by-side with their backs against the wall. There’s a bit of a draft, so Yuuri pulls a quilt over their laps. Pleasantly exhausted, conversation with Yuuri no longer seems quite so intimidating. 

“My mom taught me,” Yuuri replies as he picks up the in-progress sweater he’s making for Viktor.

It’s not the answer Viktor expected. He hesitates and wonders if he should ask.

“She taught you well, then.”

“Mm,” Yuuri hums, not looking up from his line of stitches. “She did.” There is a wistful edge to his voice

“Did she teach you to knit too?”

“Yes. She actually made this for me.” He gestures to the sweater he’s wearing.

“It looks complicated.”

“It’s not too bad once you get the hang of it,” Yuuri assures him as his needles, fingers, and yarn move around each other in an intricate pattern that Viktor’s brain can’t even begin to follow.

“I think you’re just very talented.”

Yuuri blushes. His mouth opens and closes as he searches for a response. “I’m not. I just have a lot of practice.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

Yuuri clears his throat, chancing a quick look sideways at Viktor. “Would you want me to teach you?”

“You’d do that?”

“Sure. It’s a good thing to do when you’re bored. And it helps me sometimes, when things are… You know. Loud.”

“Loud?”

“In my head, I mean.”

Yuuri fidgets, looking quite vulnerable, his hands paused mid-stitch. Viktor stares, unable to help himself, feeling just as exposed.

“It’s like that for me, too,” he admits, his voice rough. “Almost always.” _Today has been better,_ he doesn’t add. _Helping you made it better._

Yuuri holds out the knitting needles. “Then let me teach you?"

“Please."

—

The cell is so grey that he forgets what color looks like. Torchlight streams through the tiny barred window in the door; it should be yellow, orange, _warm,_ but it has assimilated to its environment and gone cold and pale and weak. Its light does not change with the time of day nor with the seasons; it just flickers and burns, somewhere out of sight. It dies out every now and then, sometimes many hours before they return to feed him.

The torchlight taunts him, drives him mad like midnight sunlight, but the darkness is worse, an underground blackness so complete it _consumes._ During those long hours everything Viktor knows is sucked from him, leaving him unsure of himself, unsure of the world, unsure of anything but his own thoughts which he would gladly silence if he could. 

Somewhere down a long hallway, a key fits in a door. Hinges creak. Footsteps ring. The sound of a match, then _light again, LIGHT,_ searing his retinas. 

Viktor hears the sound of someone breathing, someone who _isn’t him,_ and he clings to the quiet inhale, exhale, inhale. The person doesn’t speak. A bowl of something tasteless slides through a hatch in the door. The footsteps retreat. The hinges creak, a key jingles, and Viktor’s ears ring painfully in the silence.

He jerks at his chains until his wrists bleed, his blood black against the stone floor. When he closes his eyes, he sees the imprint of light through the barred window burned into his eyelids. His eyes roll back in his head and he sees a familiar face warped in a pitying smile, feels the phantom burn of poison seeping into his veins. Looking down, he sees his body as it once was, strong and lithe, silver hair falling to his waist, his wrists unblemished and free. Everything goes blurry and desperate questions die on his heavy tongue as the poison ravages him, paralyzes him.

When he collapses, the crown falls from his head. Someone reaches down to pick it up.

Everything is grey and black and silent. His thoughts are deafening. Iron manacles claim his wrists. He screams.

And screams.

And screams.

_“Viktor!”_

—

In the middle of the night, nearly two weeks after he first found a man left for dead in the woods, Yuuri wakes suddenly to garbled cries. Panic shooting through his body, he springs from his makeshift bedding and searches for the lurking danger only to realize the source of the noise is _Viktor,_ curled up in a ball and trembling like a wounded animal. A different kind of fear seizes Yuuri and pushes him closer.

“Viktor,” he whispers as he kneels between Viktor and the crackling fire. Yuuri reaches out, his hand falling lightly on his shoulder. “Viktor!” Yuuri tries again, shaking him this time. 

Viktor jolts and Yuuri jerks his arm back. Blue eyes snap open, as unseeing as the night Yuuri found him. Viktor sits up almost violently, sucking in a wild breath that rips through his entire body. His arms, curled up near his stomach, begin to twist around each other, fingers tearing at the unyielding manacles.

“Viktor, _Viktor,_ calm down, you’re safe…” 

“Get them off,” Viktor pants, still clawing at his chains. His fingernails draw blood. 

“Viktor, you need to stop, you’re hurting yourself—”

“ _Get them off.”_

“I can’t, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I—” Yuuri reaches out, grabbing Viktor’s hands and taking them in his. “Viktor, please calm down!”

Viktor’s hand tremble and fingers twitch, making the metal chains rattle against each other. He’s hyperventilating.

“They won’t _come off.”_

“I know. I know, Viktor, but you’re safe. You’re _free._ ” Yuuri squeezes Viktor’s hands tightly, hoping to ground him and cover up the undeniable tremor of Yuuri’s fingers as well. “Listen to me, _look at me._ You’re free.”

“Yuuri?”

“Yes. It’s me, it’s me.” 

Viktor’s wild eyes search around the cabin, taking in the wooden walls, the light-blue curtains, and the steady fire. His gaze settles on Yuuri, horror seeping slowly from his face. 

“You need to breathe,” Yuuri prompts him. Gently, he guides Viktor’s palms to lay flat against his chest and breathes slowly, in and out. Mari used to do this for him when things got bad. He always found that it helped.

It seems to help Viktor, too. He doesn’t pull his arms away, and after a minute his breaths begin to even out to match Yuuri’s. 

“There,” Yuuri encourages him. “That’s better.”

“Yes,” Viktor agrees, sounding completely winded. The blue pools of his eyes stay fixated on Yuuri, wide and unblinking. “Better.”

Viktor’s choked screams still ring in Yuuri’s ears, and his stomach hurts thinking about what might have caused them. He’s seen the evidence of suffering written on Viktor’s body as plain and nauseating as can be, but he’d be naïve to think those were the only cruelties this gentle man has been forced to endure. 

“We’re going to get them off,” Yuuri promises.

Viktor’s eyes flicker sideways. “I know.”

“Your strength seems like it’s been coming back.”

“It has,” Viktor agrees. “In the past week especially.”

“Then let’s leave soon, if you’re up to it.”

“Soon?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

Any other time, Yuuri thinks that Viktor might have protested, taking back up his insistence that Yuuri didn’t need to accompany him. Tonight, his mind ravaged by excruciating memories and blood beading in nail-shaped cuts on his wrists, he just accepts Yuuri’s offer with relief. 

Viktor’s hands are still cradled in Yuuri’s and pressed against his chest. The warmth grounds Yuuri, just as he hopes it grounds Viktor. Yuuri carefully pulls the end of the cloth he used to bandage Viktor’s wrists out from beneath the manacle and uses it to wipe away the blood. He then wraps it back around Viktor’s wrists, covering the shallow cuts. He takes great care in every single motion, then takes Viktor’s hands back in his. 

Viktor shivers and squeezes Yuuri’s fingers. “Thank you.”

Outside, the night air is cold. The unmarked path that leads to the Forest Guardians stretches east through the deep mountainous woods, long and wandering. It has been a long time since Yuuri made the week-long journey, and he’d long looked to the east with dread heavy in his stomach.

In two days’ time they will set out. Yuuri’s body buzzes with nervous energy, but he calms himself with the gratitude shining clear in Viktor’s sky-blue eyes. _Thank you,_ he said.

Yuuri’s response surprises even himself.

“Anything for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at first I didn't want to write this story because I thought it was self indulgent - then I remembered, _everything I write is self-indulgent_
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!! I hope to have the last chapter up in a few weeks. Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought!!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hello! Sorry about the inadvertent 9-month break, I’ve definitely (re)learned my lesson about not posting WIPs before I finish them. Thank you guys so much for your patience <3 
> 
> Please notice that I upped the rating from T to M, just because of the horrible shit in Viktor’s past. I’ve added a CW ‘mentions of plague’. Nothing graphic, just a few references, but well. You know. 
> 
> Also, I increased the chapter count from 2 to 4! I’ve got parts 2 and 3 written — I’ll be posting the next chapter later this week. The final part is more of a coda, and I’ll post that when I finish it.
> 
> Thank you so much to [Rachel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/pseuds/Chrome) for beta-reading and [Riki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riki/pseuds/Riki), [Rae](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/raedear), and [R*vamp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deripmaver/pseuds/deripmaver) for alpha-reading!

When Viktor was a freshly-crowned puppet king of only sixteen, he often dreamed of sunlight. Not just any sunlight, but the glow of the beach in the summer, the kind of sunlight that burned him as red as a tomato when he played for too long in the waves. The kind of sunlight that glinted in Yuri’s seawater eyes when he focused on a sandcastle, tongue between his teeth, and that made Makkachin’s fur so warm that Viktor couldn’t stop petting her. In his castle chambers Viktor would rest fitfully, dreaming of his mother’s smile, his cousin’s laugh, his puppy’s delighted barking as she chased down a seagull—all bathed in golden sunlight.

The sun had gone away entirely when he turned sixteen, the year the plague swept into Piter. On his father’s orders, the servants boarded up every window in the castle and locked every door. For months, Viktor guided himself down hallways by torchlight. His father said it was necessary, and his mother agreed. Viktor believed them.

They died anyway. 

The throne room had been lit by torches the day of Viktor’s coronation, planks of wood still nailed over the colorful stained-glass windows. The throne in front of him—his  _ father’s _ throne, as he’d always thought of it—was empty, the space between the gilded armrests like a vacuum. The plush red velvet of the throne’s backrest looked like the brown of dried blood in the low light. Every step Viktor took toward it was inevitable and impossible at the same time, his limbs weighed down by ceremonial armor and propelled forward by mind-numbing duty and the expectant stares of the few in his father’s court that had been allowed to attend. 

Every few minutes, Viktor allowed his eyes to flicker to his left, where his father’s most trusted advisor stood. Of the few men in this room, Lord Dmitri Mikhailovich, Viktor’s godfather, was the only one Viktor knew he could trust. He gave Viktor a reassuring nod when he caught him looking, and Viktor clung to the gesture as if it had come from his father.

Viktor stepped up to the throne and turned around to face the rows of empty benches. The crown was placed on his head, even heavier than he expected. 

Viktor had not even finished his studies yet. He was a shoddy swordsman compared to his father and his trainers, knew very little of the inner workings of the court, and had never held a true position of leadership in his life. He preferred playing with his poodle to sparring with his peers. His voice had only dropped last year. His frame was narrow and unimposing, his silver hair braided down his back like a little boy. 

Suddenly, there were tears prickling behind his eyelids. Viktor cursed himself silently, for he hadn’t been able to cry when his parents died, when he’d actually wanted to. He was already a weakling king, he couldn’t cry now, he  _ couldn’t— _

Underneath his ceremonial robes, Viktor pinched his wrist hard between his fingernails. It snapped him out of it and back into that state of welcome numbness.

Eventually, the sickness ran its course. Piter had been devastated—half its population gone, its new king a  _ child.  _ The boards were removed from the windows, the sunlight filtering through the glass, but it was different—cold, even in summer. Viktor held out his arms to let it soak into his skin, but he couldn’t feel it, as if he had been boarded up inside. 

(Years later, in a forgotten cell deep below the castle, he did not dream of sunlight. Those memories would have broken him if he let them in.)

“Are you alright?” Yuuri asks.

Viktor stands unmoving on the steps just outside the cabin door. He’s covered from head to toe in Yuuri’s clothing—his boots, his pants, his coat, his scarf, and the new sweater Yuuri had just finished knitting.  _ It’s nearly winter, and it’s going to be cold in the mountains,  _ Yuuri said when he gave it to him. But as Viktor takes his first few steps outside of the cabin, he wants to strip it all off. The air may be chilly, but to the east the sun has risen. 

Viktor’s hands tremble as he stretches them out before him. He watches the light play off his pallid skin and imagines it seeping through the lifelines in his palm. He tips his face toward the rising sun, letting it bathe his cheeks and lips and neck. The insides of his closed eyelids glow bright red. 

The forest smells of decaying leaves and morning dew. He breathes in, imagining the fresh air and pale yellow sunlight swirling in his lungs and turning to fog when he exhales. Viktor’s legs nearly give out as he goes down the three steps outside Yuuri’s cabin, but he doesn’t fall. The remnants of the chains rattle at his sides. He takes another breath, intoxicated.

“Be careful!” There’s a hand on Viktor’s shoulder, steadying him. Viktor looks and finds Yuuri at his side—he moves fast, despite being weighed down by all of their supplies. 

“I’m alright,” Viktor says.

Yuuri’s eyes flicker with worry. “Okay, just. Stay close to me as we walk, alright? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Yuuri.” 

Which isn’t, strictly speaking, true. Only an hour into their week-long journey, Viktor has already stumbled three times: first on a hidden log, then on a vine, then on just… his own feet. The terrain is mostly flat, but he’s winded after only a few short minutes of hiking. Vicchan occasionally circles back to bark at him, as if saying  _ hurry up!  _ Yuuri, who is carrying a massive pack of supplies including waterproof animal skins, dried meats and vegetables, blankets, two canteens of water, and a crossbow, does not even look tired. And to think that Viktor insisted he would be able to help carry it all.

“Let’s take a break,” Yuuri decides a few hours in. Viktor’s lungs spasm when he tries to voice his agreement. His legs turn to mush the second he sits down on the log next to Yuuri. He tries to school his breathing, but Yuuri is not fooled.

“You look overheated.”

“I’m fine.”

“Your cheeks are beet-red—”

“Okay, fine, yes. I’m overheated.” Viktor takes off the coat and lays it next to him on the log. The clinking of the chains around his wrist give away the trembling of his hands. 

“Let’s have lunch,” Yuuri suggests, and pulls some dried venison from their pack. Vicchan barks, demanding his share. 

They continue on after they eat, with Yuuri setting a slower pace this time. Vicchan bounds ahead of them, taking little detours to bark after rabbits but always returning to Yuuri’s side. Viktor manages to power through, forcing his body to reacquaint itself with the concept of physical exertion. He’s strong, he  _ knows _ he is, but the kind of strength required to stay quiet during days of interrogation is not the kind of strength that keeps him going past the point of exhaustion on legs so unused to walking. 

They stop to make camp before the sun has even set behind them. Yuuri had estimated a week’s journey east to reach the home of the Forest Guardians. Had he been taking Viktor’s injuries into account? How far behind have they already fallen?

They set up sleeping bags made of animal furs, laying them on top of a waterproofed animal hide to keep the water in the ground from seeping through. “The skies are clear, so we shouldn’t need to set up the tent,” Yuuri decides.

They collect a few branches for firewood and Yuuri rubs them together until they spark. The fire grows as daylight fades. Yuuri sits on his sleeping bag, knees pulled to his chest, and chews thoughtfully on a carrot. The silence gnaws at Viktor until he can’t take it anymore.

“This is a really nice sweater,” he says, running his forefinger over a few of the stitches. “Thank you again.”

Yuuri starts, as if he had gotten lost in his mind and forgotten Viktor was there. That has happened to Viktor many times since Yuuri found him, unaccustomed as he is to any human company, so he knows the feeling well.

“Oh, ah, thank you,” Yuuri stutters. “I’m really glad you like it. I have the scarf you were knitting in the backpack, if you ever want to work on it. To, you know. Relax.”

Knitting actually sounds really nice, but Viktor isn’t sure his fingers are steady enough right now for the precise movements of stitches. Maybe another night further into their journey if he—  _ when _ he builds up some strength.

“You don’t need to worry about me, Yuuri,” Viktor promises. “I can make it.”

Yuuri frowns. “I don’t want you to push yourself too hard. Your back is still wounded, and your body is still trying to heal…”

“My back doesn’t hurt.” Yuuri had rubbed that salve into the lacerations again last night when he changed Viktor’s bandages. It numbs the pain until it’s so dull and so constant Viktor hardly even feels it anymore. “It’s just been a while. That’s all.”

“Since what?”

Viktor swallows. He doesn’t want to say it, but he waltzed right into this one, didn’t he?

“Since I walked.”

Yuuri’s eyes widen. In them, the reflection of the campfire flickers. “How long?” he asks quietly, as if he doesn’t really want to know the answer. Surely he had suspected this, though? Viktor’s body is little more than skin stretched over a skeleton, his atrophied muscles evident in his stick-thin arms and legs. 

Viktor looks down at the strip of dried venison in his hands. The chains around his wrists are old and rusted. He swallows. “A year, I think.”

They are sitting close enough that Viktor hears Yuuri’s quiet exhale. Viktor can’t look at his eyes. He knows what he’ll see, sorrow and horror flickering with the firelight, and his composure is already tenuous as it is. Viktor can’t risk losing his grip on himself, not when they’ve only just started their journey.

“A year,” Yuuri rasps. Out of the corner of his eye, Viktor sees Yuuri’s hand hovering in midair, threatening to reach out to him, before Yuuri pulls it back into his lap. “Spirits, Viktor, I can’t imagine.”

“Please don’t try to.”

“O-okay.”

Viktor’s skin is crawling. He shudders, pressing his hand against the fur of the sleeping bag and grounding himself in the present. He eats the rest of his dinner as quickly as he can. Chewing is a strange feeling after having lived on stale porridge for so long. The dried meat gets stuck in his teeth.

It’s still early, but Viktor has to fight to keep his eyes open. They call it a night and climb into their sleeping bags that protect them from the cold night air. Here in the middle of the forest, the humming of the crickets is louder than it was inside Yuuri’s cabin, but Viktor doesn’t mind. When he looks up through the leaves, he sees the stars.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

Beside him, Yuuri hums. “They really are. I always forget.”

“I did, too.”

Viktor connects constellations in his mind until he falls asleep. 

—

Pavel is on his way back from the carriage-house, imagining what it will feel like to _ finally _ crawl back in his own bed after a long few weeks on the road, when he’s shoved face-first onto the ground. He thrashes, but a knee on his lower back sends pain shooting up his spine. He opens his mouth to shout for help, but a leather-gloved hand muffles his cries. 

A blade presses against the side of his neck. Above him, a voice hisses, “If you scream, I kill you.”

“You  _ fucker,  _ who _ —” _

“Shut up. Where is he?”

Pavel blinks. “Who?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“I have no idea wh—”

The knife presses into his skin, hard enough to draw blood.

“Okay,  _ okay,  _ stop, gone, he’s gone.” 

“Where did you take him?”

“I don’t—”

The knife presses harder, right above his pulse point. Terror shoots like lightning down his spine. He recognizes this feeling. He’s seen it in the boy’s eyes more times than he can count. 

_ Fuck.  _ He was so close to being done with this shit. He’s sick of doing that bastard’s dirty work. It’d been nice at first, the extra pay, the little rushes of power he’d get when he spilled the boy’s dinner all over the dungeon floor. But it got old real fast, and the only good thing about this fucking trip to the wilderness was getting to come back and be done with it all. 

“It was you,” Pavel growls. He thrashes again, jerking his head up and around to try to catch a glimpse of his assailant. “You little  _ shit, _ who are you, how did you find out—”

The hilt of the knife crashes into his temples, and the knee on his back presses harder. 

“I’m only going to ask you one more time,” the voice hisses. “Where. Did you. Take him.”

The knife presses harder. Pavel panics. “The border! Just— the edge of Midori forest, there’s a clearing. Four days’ journey. Left’m there.”

His assailant snarls. “If you’re lying to me—”

“So what if I am? It’s been weeks, was told to take my time comin’ back. The kid’s dead already.”

“Then I’ll find his fucking body and give him the burial he deserves. I should kill you.”

“Then do it.”

“One day. Not tonight.”

The hilt of the knife collides with Pavel’s temple again. His vision goes black for a few seconds, long enough for the assailant to spring off of him and disappear into the shadows.

_ Great, _ he thinks. 

When Dmitri finds out about this, he’s fucked.

—

In the morning, they climb out of their bedrolls, roll them up tightly to fit in Yuuri’s bulging backpack, and take off walking toward the rising sun. Yuuri is quiet in the mornings, sleep still lingering in his bleary eyes and messy hair. Viktor feels remarkably well-rested for having slept on the hardened forest floor. After pushing his body to the limit yesterday, he’d fallen right to sleep.

Viktor  _ will _ do better today. They won’t reach their destination in time if he can’t improve his stamina. His whole body hurts, but he has endured far worse than aching legs and straining lungs. At least now, the pain is something he chose for himself. 

That day’s terrain is rockier and a little bit downhill. Viktor mostly manages to keep pace just behind Yuuri, who takes his hand a few times to help him clamber over fallen trees.

“I think I might be a bit out of shape, too,” Yuuri admits when they stop for lunch. He’s panting ever so slightly, perhaps for show, but it still makes Viktor feel a little better.

That night, after they finish eating dinner, Yuuri pulls Viktor’s unfinished knitting project out of their pack. The needle had slipped slightly in transit, crammed in so awkwardly with all their belongings. Viktor has to redo a few rows, but he doesn’t mind. The repetitive motion soothes him. 

“You’re getting good at that.”

The praise goes straight to Viktor’s chest and squeezes. “You think so?”

“Definitely! I mean, look how much progress you’ve made. You’ll have a whole scarf before those chains come off.” Yuuri freezes. “Uh, I mean, sorry, that was—”

“It’s okay.”

“It was insensitive.”

“I was thinking about them, anyway.” He can’t help it. Every time he moves his arms, he hears the remnants of the chain clinking together. They make themselves known with every stitch. 

“They’ll be gone, soon,” Yuuri promises, that determined look shuttering over his eyes. “I promise you.”

They never talked about that night, when Yuuri had to wake up Viktor from a nightmare. Yuuri never said anything about the way Viktor grabbed him, half-delirious, and _ begged  _ him to get the manacles off. Luckily, that hasn’t happened again since. Viktor’s nightmares are usually quieter. Less sloppy. They contain themselves to his mind and don’t unload his baggage on the undeserving stranger who has taken him in.

“You are very kind, Yuuri,” Viktor observes, not looking up from his knitting. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Yuuri straighten as if the statement startled him.

“Anyone else would do the same.”

A bowl of gruel, upended on the dirt-covered flagstones; eyes glinting down at him from the barred window, amusement chasing away the boredom.

“No,” Viktor shakes his head. “They wouldn’t.”

—

On the fourth night, rain clouds gather. Viktor and Yuuri pitch their tent for the first time. Inside, the sides of their sleeping bags run up against each other. Even with the raindrops pattering on the tarp above them, Viktor can hear every breath Yuuri takes. He tries to control his own breathing pattern as he reminds himself that the enclosed space can not actually confine him. The chains on his wrists have been broken. The walls and roof around him aren’t walls and a roof at all, but treated animal hide stretched over wooden poles. And next to him is Yuuri, with Vicchan curled in a ball between them. Yuuri is kind, and that’s far better than being alone.

Yuuri does not seem to mind being alone. They walk for hours through the forest without speaking sometimes, which Viktor appreciates considering how winded he gets while talking and walking at the same time, but still. How long has it been since Yuuri spoke to another human before he found Viktor? He has family and friends, he’s mentioned them, and made no mention of their deaths.

“Why do you live alone, Yuuri?” Viktor asks that night it first rains, unable to stop himself. 

Yuuri shrugs. Lying this close to each other, Viktor can feel the movement. 

“I like it.”

“You do?”

Yuuri pauses. “I don’t mind it.”

“But wouldn’t you be happier?” Viktor wonders. “Around other people? Your… your family?”

Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut. “I… I screwed up really badly, Viktor. The people I love were relying on me, but I messed up. I needed to take some time. Away.”

Viktor blinks. He props himself up on his elbow, careful to keep from pulling the healing skin on his back. He frowns at Yuuri, the way he’s drawn up his brow in pain. “You’re punishing yourself,” he gasps.

He can hardly believe it. What Mikhailovich did to Viktor as a form of torture, Yuuri has been doing to himself.

Yuuri’s eyes snap open. “No! I’m not— I’m not  _ punishing _ myself. But I don’t fit in there. With them. They love me and I love them but I just needed to go away for a while.” Yuuri swallows audibly. “Please don’t make me say any more than that.”

Viktor lowers himself back to the ground, still curled up on his side. He pillows his head on his elbow. 

“I think I know what you mean,” he says slowly.

“What about your family?”

“What about them?”

“Are they…?”

“They’re dead.”

Yuuri winces.

“I’m sorry.”

“The plague hit Piter hard.”

“You’re from Piter, then?”

“Yes. I never said?”

“No.” 

The sound of the rain hitting the tarp turns harsher. Hail. A reminder that winter is approaching; a reminder of why they had to make this journey with Viktor still injured in the first place.

“I do have a cousin,” Viktor admits. “He has the same name as you. He’d be fifteen by now.” A ghostly smile crosses Viktor’s lips. “Probably still a little ball of anger.”

“His name is Yuri?” Yuuri asks, pronouncing the name the way they do in Piter. 

“Yes. How—”

“You thought I was him, I think, when I told you what my name was. The fever had you pretty badly, you kept saying that name. Asking… asking me to leave you there.”

Viktor has a faint memory of that. More than anything, he remembers the sharp terror of thinking his cousin had come back for him.

No. Viktor hadn’t broken, and so Mikhailovich knows nothing. Yuri is safe. Yuri is with his grandfather. Yuri is with—

_ “Makkachin,”  _ Viktor croaks, his voice warbling dangerously. Where did this come from? 

_ Yuri, leave, please leave, they can’t find you here, please, take care of Makkachin for me, that’s all I want, that’s all— _

“Makkachin?”

“My dog,” Viktor sighs. His fingers reach out of their own volition and bury themselves in Vicchan’s fur. “A poodle.”

“Oh, no, Viktor, I’m so sorry.”

“I think she’s safe. I think she’s with Yuri.”

“I’m sure he’s taking great care of her.”

There’s another hand petting Vicchan’s fur. Yuuri’s fingers overlap slightly with his. Viktor shudders.

“Thank you, Yuuri.”

Yuuri nods. “You should sleep.”

“Okay. You too.”

“I will.”

That night, Viktor dreams of pain so all-consuming it fills his mouth with blood and whites out his vision, screaming questions of  _ who was it, who found you, WHO WAS IT  _ throbbing in his eardrums until he screams—

_ YURI, YURA, YURI PLISETSKY, STOP, PLEASE STOP _

He wakes up gasping, heaving, both manacled hands held tightly in Yuuri’s. Viktor closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the look on Yuuri’s face—it’s always the compassion that tilts Viktor over the edge.

—

The rain doesn’t stop in the morning, but they keep walking anyway, bundled up beneath their coats. Viktor shivers, burning up beneath the layers of clothing and freezing where the rain hits his skin, but the physical sensation grounds him. He pushes his body hard. If he stops, he fears he might think.

Mercifully, the rain doesn’t last. The sky is clear and the sun warm on the day that follows, the sixth day since they left Yuuri’s cabin. Without Viktor to slow them down, they would be only a day away from the home of the Forest Guardians—as it is, they’ve only just arrived at the foot of the mountains they’ll have to cross before they arrive. Yuuri estimates at least another five days. They may run out of food, but Yuuri brought his crossbow. If their situation grows dire, he can hunt.

But for now, they have food. The sun hangs high in the sky and warms Viktor’s skin. Just after midday, they stumble upon a stream that runs through a valley in the foothills of the mountains. They hear the water before they see it, the crisp, gurgling sound of a current rushing over stones.

The creek’s water is clear, cold, and at its deepest only comes up to Viktor’s hips. The pain startles him, the way the cold seems to stab at his bones, but for once his mind does not flash to that buried cell. He remembers the beach in the early summer when the water hadn’t had a chance to warm up yet. He used to run through the waves with Yuri and Makkachin, ignoring the cold entirely.

Yuuri and Viktor politely do not look at each other in the time it takes to strip off their clothes and wade into the waist-high water. They bathe as best they can in the creek, the grime and stench of a week in the wilderness sluicing away with the water. Vicchan splashes in the shallows, barking in delight and chasing after tadpoles.

Yuuri has a deceptively slight frame for how physically capable he is. He must have carried Viktor all the way back from the clearing where he’d been abandoned, and while Viktor has no idea how far that was or how much he weighs anymore, surely that was no small feat of strength. Those unassuming arms, currently dripping with water that glints in the sunlight, hide a considerable amount of muscle. Standing naked in a stream in the middle of nowhere feels oddly safe, just because he’s standing here with Yuuri.

He’s beautiful. Spirits, he’s  _ stunning.  _

“It probably isn’t a good idea to get the bandages wet,” Yuuri says. “Your wounds could get infected.”

Viktor looks down at his wrists. The bandages beneath the manacles are soaked through. The manacles will be even rustier by tomorrow. “Too late for these.”

“The cuts on your wrists were mostly healed a few days ago. I’ll change the bandages tonight. You probably need more of the salve, right?”

Viktor’s wrists and back have been pulsing steadily with pain all day, the salve having worn off sometime the night before. He wasn’t planning on mentioning it. 

He nods. They go back to bathing. Vicchan ventures further toward them, paddling hard with his little legs against the current so he doesn’t drift downstream. When Yuuri notices his dog is fighting a losing battle, he scolds him and scoops him out of the water, depositing him on the riverbank. The little droplets that fling from his fur as he shakes himself dry make Yuuri sputter in protest. 

In the middle of the creek, Viktor bends over at the waist to dunk his head below the water—wet, his longest strands of hair come down a palm’s length past his shoulders.

“I could cut it for you. If you want.”

Viktor freezes, pushing a strand of matted hair out of his eyes. “What?”

“Your hair. I brought a pretty sharp knife. Would you feel better if I cut it? I have a lot of practice cutting my own.”

Viktor runs his fingers over his dripping and uneven split ends. “It used to be down to my waist,” he murmurs.

“Oh. Why did you cut it?”

“I didn’t.”

Yuuri looks away. “I’m sorry, I keep saying things like that and you should just ignore me—”

“Yuuri. It’s okay.” Viktor sighs, twisting his hair to wring out the water.. “I should trim it, at least. It has grown back so unevenly.” 

The greasy tangles beneath his fingers make him slightly nauseous, and the water doesn’t seem to be helping. He used to spend hours brushing it out and braiding it, shut in his room with nothing to do. The routine was soothing, even when he was boarded up inside and couldn’t feel anything even when he tried.

“Tonight, then. I can help you if you want. After I change your bandages.”

“That sounds nice, Yuuri,” Viktor hums.

—

Yuuri hasn’t made this trek through the forest in two years, despite knowing he could. Time has passed, but he recognizes landmarks along the way—the giant, hollowed-out tree they passed three days back, the clearing with the purple wildflowers the day after that, and of course, the creek at the base of the mountains.

The journey from Yuuri’s cabin to the home of the Forest Guardians is largely a journey eastward, but on the day they find the creek, they turn and travel north. Walking upstream along the water will eventually lead them to an existing trail that cuts through the mountains at the point where they’re safest to cross. Plus, they will have easy access to fresh water.

For a day they walk north along the creek, accompanied by the soothing bubbling of the water trickling past. The water is lower than it was when Yuuri first passed through here, mid-summer two years ago. Along the creek the pine trees grow, their evergreen needles a beautiful contrast to the mostly-bare forest they’ve been walking through for the past week. Yuuri takes a deep breath with every step, inhaling the fresh scent of running water and the rich perfume of pine needles.  _ Spirits, _ it smells like home. 

Despite the stress on his body, Viktor looks better for the journey, blossoming in the sunlight and breathing easier in the fresh air. When Yuuri tries to imagine stepping outside after a year in captivity, walking freely after a year in chains, his mind and body rebel against the thought. Yuuri has lived a sheltered life. The kind of horrors Viktor has suffered, Yuuri can’t even bring himself to imagine.

As they walk, Yuuri can hear the bubbling water, the crunch of twigs underfoot, Viktor’s steady but heavy breathing, and Vicchan’s occasional barking as he bounds ahead of them in pursuit of whatever wildlife catches his eye. Mostly, though, Yuuri’s brain fixates on one sound in particular as they walk—the jangling of the chainlinks still attached to Viktor’s shackles. The ever-present guilt works very hard to turn his stomach inside out at the sound. Even though cutting Viktor free was the best he could do, it was simply not enough. He deserves someone better than Yuuri. He deserves someone who could truly set him free. 

But that’s where they’re going. This, at least, Yuuri can do for him even if it hurts. Every step, Viktor draws closer to the spirit magic that will rid him of those chains for good—and every step, Yuuri struggles harder not to think of what awaits  _ him.  _

By the time the sun begins to set to their left, they reach the bend in the creek where the water comes down from the mountains. Tomorrow, they will set out eastward again, following the creek up through the mountain pass. For now, they set up their camp in a small clearing near the water. Viktor sets up the fire pit while Yuuri gathers sticks from the nearby pine trees with Vicchan’s help. They manage to get the fire going just as the worst of the cold starts to set in. Since the sky looks clear they decide not to pitch the tent. The winds are calm tonight, and they would rather stay warm close to the fire. 

After a quiet dinner of yet more dried venison, Yuuri sets to work changing Viktor’s bandages and reapplying Minako’s salve. The weeks together have allowed them to establish a routine. First, Viktor holds out his wrists for Yuuri to unwind the bandages tucked beneath the manacles. Careful to keep the metal away from Viktor’s tender skin, he reapplies the salve and re-wraps them with a clean set of bandages pulled from his overstuffed backpack. Viktor keeps his eyes on Yuuri’s face while he works, but that no longer makes Yuuri nervous. Watching Yuuri seems to ground him in the present as Yuuri wraps his fingers around the part of his body that has been restrained for so long. Being able to help Viktor like this, to visit kindness upon the places he hurts, gives Yuuri a guilty rush of pleasure he never could have anticipated.

With his wrists taken care of, Yuuri moves on to Viktor’s back. Viktor takes off the sweater Yuuri had knit for him and holds his arms up to the side, inviting Yuuri to unwind the dirty bandages from his torso. Then he lays face-down on the bedroll, his head pillowed on the crook of his right elbow and Vicchan stretched out at his side, and allows Yuuri to kneel beside him and re-apply the salve.

The thirty-some horrid lash wounds, red and raw and recent when Yuuri found Viktor chained to that tree, are healing well with the help of the salve. The pink skin under Yuuri’s fingers is hot from knitting itself steadily back together. 

“How does that feel?” Yuuri asks as he spreads the balm over the wounds.

“Amazing,” Viktor mutters, the tension draining from his muscles. He lets out a barely-audible sigh of relief and sinks into the animal furs beneath him.

Yuuri smiles. When he finishes covering Viktor’s back, he coaxes the injured man to sit back up and hold out his arms again for Yuuri to wrap him in a clean bandage. The dirty ones he takes to the creek to wash as best he can. He hangs them over a tree branch to dry overnight, hoping they won’t just freeze.

When he returns, he finds Viktor sitting with his legs crossed in front of him, staring into the fire.

“Are you warm enough?” Yuuri asks, sitting down beside him. Viktor looks cozy in his sweater, but the night is only getting colder. 

“Yes. Thank you, Yuuri.”

“No problem. Uh, so do you want to…” Yuuri pulls his hunting knife from his backpack and sets it in his lap. “You said you wanted to trim your hair.”

Viktor nods. “Can you do it? I don’t mind.”

“Sure. It will be easier if we get it wet again.” Yuuri looks around the campsite for water, unwilling to drag Viktor away from the fire to stand in the cold creek behind them. He finds his canteen laying next to his backpack. 

Viktor lays his head back, sticking out past the bedroll so that the water Yuuri pours from the canteen does not get on anything but his hair and the meadow grass beneath them. Then he sits back up, crosses his legs, and bows his head as Yuuri kneels behind him with a knife.

_ Why did you cut it? _

_ I didn’t. _

Yuuri lays a hand on his shoulder, feeling the fine tremor that rumbles through Viktor’s body. Noticing his distress, Vicchan gives a little  _ yip _ and clambers into Viktor’s lap, curling up between his legs. With his hand in the dog’s fur, Viktor relaxes slightly.

“I’ll be careful.”

Viktor nods, still staring into the fire. “I know you will.”

“How much should I take off?”

“Just enough to make it even on the ends.”

Viktor’s hair has become so matted and greasy that Yuuri can hardly run his fingers through it from the scalp to the ends. He tries only once, hitting a snag and feeling Viktor stiffen, before he moves his focus to the split ends instead. He slices them off as carefully as he can, cutting off strands about the length of his pinky. When it dries, the ends of his hair will sit just above Viktor’s shoulders.

“You know,” Yuuri muses as he puts the knife in his sheath and watches Viktor run his fingers over the even ends, “I didn’t bring any soap, but the salve might be able to clean your hair."

Viktor turns away from the fire to look at Yuuri, who moves to sit at his side. “I thought the salve was for pain. And keeping away infection.”

“It is.” Yuuri’s hands twist in his lap. He casts out for a way to explain this to Viktor without raising any more questions. “But it prevents infection by cleaning away any dirt that might have found its way into the wound. It should be able to clear the oils and dirt from your hair. I’ve actually used it to clean my hair before, when I got sap in it and soap wouldn’t work. I could try…” Yuuri trails off, reaching for the jar.

Viktor shakes his head. “I can’t ask you to do that. You’re wasting so much of it on me already.”

“Wasting? Viktor, I’m using it to heal you. To make sure you’re not in pain, how is that a waste?”

“But it was a gift, you said. From your godmother, presumably something she gave you years ago that I’m sure you want to make last as long as poss—”

“Viktor. I go through this stuff faster than you can imagine. I use it  _ constantly,  _ for the tiniest little scratches and bruises and even bee stings, sometimes. Minako, that’s my godmother, replenishes my stock at least twice a year.”

“I thought you hadn’t seen your family in years?”

“I haven’t. She sends a… messenger. Now please, let me use it to clean your hair? I  _ promise _ it’s not a waste. I don’t mind.”

Viktor runs his fingers through Vicchan’s fur, now soft and clean from their bath in the creek this morning. How long has it been since Viktor’s hair felt clean? Yuuri fears the answer is somewhere in the ballpark of an entire year.

Too long. Not a moment more.

“Alright,” Viktor agrees. “How do you want me to…?”

Yuuri purses his lips in thought. “I’ll need to apply it to your whole head, including your scalp. Since you’re taller than me, maybe it would be easier if you… laid down?”

Shifting Vicchan carefully from his lap and whispering little apologies, Viktor moves to lay down. Yuuri freezes when Viktor lays his head across Yuuri’s lap instead of resting on his arms the way he had when Yuuri changed his bandages. Viktor curls up on his side, facing away from Yuuri and toward the fire, the heat of his neck seeping through Yuuri’s pants along with the water from his hair.

“Oh,” Yuuri breathes. His hands hover in the air, unsure if he should touch.

“Is this alright?”

“It’s perfect.”

Yuuri unscrews the lid of the jar and begins to work his way through Viktor’s wet hair. It’s tedious work, untangling Viktor’s hair well enough to apply a light layer of salve from root to tip, but soothing at the same time. Like knitting, the practice quiet his mind; unlike knitting, it forms a knot of devotion in his chest. 

At first, Viktor is quiet and still in his lap. But the longer Yuuri works, the more sounds he draws out of him, quiet sighs and content humming and even a gasp once, when Yuuri pulls a strand of hair upward.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Viktor breathes. “Feels good.”

Yuuri can’t help but smile. His fire-warmed cheeks grow even warmer.

In the firelight, Viktor’s wet, grey hair shines dark like mercury.  _ It used to be down to my waist, _ he had said. Yuuri tries to imagine what he must have looked like before all of this, with long ropes of shining hair draped over his chest and a peaceful smile on his face. Perhaps he stood tall and confident, with lithe limbs and a face without shadows and eyes that shone brightly and housed far less pain within them. 

Against the side of Yuuri’s leg, he feels Viktor’s shoulders shudder as Yuuri’s fingers brush along his scalp. Yuuri’s eyes burn. His jaw aches. His heart cracks.

“Who  _ did _ this to you?”

Beneath Yuuri’s hands, Viktor freezes. A moment passes and he relaxes again. When he finally answers, his voice is cracked and rough. “Someone I should have known better than to trust.”

Yuuri tastes bitterness at the back of his throat. “This was not your fault.” Viktor laughs dryly, his whole body jerking in Yuuri’s lap. 

“Wasn’t it?”

_ “No. _ Never.”

At first, it sounds like Viktor will respond. It sounds like he wants to. But the seconds crawl painfully by and the silence remains. 

Eventually, Yuuri sighs and goes back to pulling apart the strands of Viktor’s hair. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I know,” Viktor whispers. “But I think I want to.”

“I’ll listen.”

“That’s all I want.”

Yuuri hears clearly what Viktor doesn’t say out loud: that he’s been so alone for so long, that he’s never actually had anyone to listen.

“You are wonderful, Yuuri. So kind. I have trouble believing I deserve it sometimes.”

“Of course you deserve it.” Yuuri feels sick.

“I know. Logically, I know.”

And if there’s anything Yuuri deeply understands, it’s how hard it can be to truly believe something, even if you know logically it is true.

For a few minutes, they listen together to the crackling fire. Yuuri rubs the salve into Viktor’s hair. Viktor breathes deeply and evenly.

“I used to be a king.”

Yuuri’s hands freeze in Viktor’s hair.

“A king?” he repeats in a thin voice.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“Only because you’re so young,” Yuuri lies easily. 

(A king, a  _ king, _ this broken boy he found bloodied and left for dead, who can’t make himself believe he deserves the barest of human kindness—)

“Believe me, it wasn’t the plan. I was too young to rule. But the plague hit us hard, both my parents died, and I didn’t have a choice.”

Yuuri returns to stroking Viktor’s hair. “I’m sorry about your parents.”

“Me too.”

“Were you close?”

“No,” Viktor admits. “But they were never cruel. A bit distant, my father especially, but they cared about me. And I understand, he had such a weight on his shoulders.”

“I can’t imagine being in charge of an entire kingdom.”

Viktor laughs again. “Me neither, actually. I was only the king in name. Legally, at sixteen, I was old enough to take the crown, but everyone knew I wasn’t ready yet. So, unofficially, my father’s advisors made all the decisions. My father’s closest friend, Lord Mikhailovich, my godfather, he was the one I trusted the most. He did everything. I was supposed to take over when I turned eighteen.”

“But that didn’t happen.”

“No. I was… by that time, things had only gotten worse. I was hardly fit to run my own life, let alone a country.”

Yuuri shudders. “He said that to you?”

“I was still a child. I was sheltered and spoiled and some days I could hardly get out of bed.”

“But that’s not your fault! You’d lost everything. Anyone would be sad.”

“I was more than sad. It was like the world just went cold and grey. The only good things were Makkachin and Yuri. The Plisetskys are my cousins from my mother’s side, so they have no claim to the throne, but they were… so welcoming. Even after Mother died. Yuri was the one who convinced me to push back against the advisors. He knew I was miserable. He thought maybe having some control over my life again would help, somehow. So I went to Lord Mikhailovich with my demands.”

Dread sits like a stone in Yuuri’s stomach, sadness pooling around it. “He betrayed you.”

Viktor takes a shaky breath. “I should never have trusted him.”

“Not your fault.”

“But it happened. I trusted him. I believed he… cared about me. And then he poisoned me.”

“Viktor…”

“Lord Mikhailovich is very superstitious. He feared retribution from the Spirits if he killed me outright. A reign begat in bloodshed…”

“Will end in bloodshed,” Yuuri finishes, the words almost automatic. “So he kept you alive.”

“For thirty-six hours, the poison made it appear that my heart had stopped. They held a funeral. Open casket.” Viktor swallows. “He told me that when I woke up. My hair had been cut off. There was an oubliette beneath the castle that even I didn’t know about, so far underground that my ears ached. He left me there.”

Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut and tries to take a steadying breath. Hot tears roll down his cheeks. “For a year,” he says, his voice cracked straight down the middle. 

“Yes.”

_ “Spirits,”  _ Yuuri curses. His hands tremble against Viktor’s head.

“Yuri found me, somehow. Little Yuri. I was so far gone, Yuuri, after all those months of silence and loneliness and…  _ decay.  _ When I saw him through the bars I thought I was hallucinating, but it was him.”

“You begged him to leave,” Yuuri realizes, filling in the gaps. Just like Viktor had begged Yuuri to leave him, to run away, to save himself.

“If Mikhailovich had found him…” Viktor shudders. “I was beyond saving. He was so young. It wasn’t fair. When he left, he promised he’d return with help. But he put the padlock back on the wrong way when he left the dungeon. The man who delivered my food everyday—at least I think it was everyday—he noticed. And then Mikhailovich was there, for the first time in a year. He wanted to know who it was.”

One of Yuuri’s hands ghosts over the back of Viktor’s shoulders. “They tortured you.”

Viktor’s whole body seizes in a shudder. “For  _ days, _ Yuuri, but I didn’t tell them. I didn’t tell them anything.”

“You’re so strong, Viktor.” Yuuri’s tears drip from his chin onto Viktor’s wet hair. He sniffles, wiping at his nose. Viktor hums. He squeezes Yuuri’s knee in thanks.

“After that,” he continues, finding his voice again, “I was a liability. They didn’t know who had found me, but they knew someone did, so they had to get rid of me. But Mikhailovich was still too much of a coward to do it himself, or even to order someone else to do it. So he had the guard smuggle me out of the kingdom. I don’t know how long I was in the prison cart.  _ Days,  _ probably, but I couldn’t stay conscious. He brought me to that clearing, chained me to the tree, and didn’t look back.”

Yuuri shakes his head. He wants so badly to take Viktor’s hand and hold them tight against his chest, but they’re just out of reach. Remembering the shackles still around his wrists, Yuuri trembles with anger.

“I don’t know what to say, except I hope both of those men suffer  _ horribly _ for what they did to you.”

“They would deserve it. But we don’t always get what we deserve.”

The implication of Viktor’s words, that Viktor  _ knows _ he doesn’t deserve what happened to him, is at least slightly comforting.

“You’re safe now,” Yuuri promises. “We’ll get those chains off and you’ll be free. Nothing like that will ever happen to you again.”

“You never know what the future holds, Yuuri.”

_ “Not that, _ Viktor. Never again. I’ll stand by your side with a crossbow for as long as you’ll let me, I don’t care, but no one will ever take away your freedom again.”

The words surprise even Yuuri, if he’s being honest. Even more surprising, he realizes that he  _ means _ it. If protecting Viktor himself is what it takes, he’ll do it. So long as Viktor has a chance at the happiness he deserves.

“Yuuri, Yuuri,” Viktor sighs. “Always so kind.

In the heavy silence that follows, Yuuri finishes applying the salve to the hair on the left side of Viktor’s head. Viktor rolls over, his back to the fire and face toward Yuuri’s stomach, so that Yuuri can do the same to the other side. Yuuri feels the warmth of Viktor’s breath seeping through his sweater.

“Should I wash it out?” Viktor asks when Yuuri finishes, sitting up from his lap and touching his palm to the crown of his head. 

“No, it should soak right up. In the morning, hopefully, your hair will be dry and clean and untangled again.”

“Thank you,” Viktor says, the sincerity in his eyes almost painful after everything Yuuri has learned. “Thank you for listening.”

Yuuri reaches out and takes Viktor’s hands in his. He ignores the chains, focusing on the man beneath them. 

“Thank you for trusting me.”

That night, they sleep with their bedrolls pressed together. Yuuri curls around Viktor’s back to keep him warm, and hopes he’ll be enough to keep the nightmares away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed!! Leave a comment and let me know what you think, if you want <3 
> 
> New chapter in a few days!
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/stammiviktor) / [tumblr](https://stammiviktor.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much again to [Rachel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/pseuds/Chrome) for beta-reading and [Riki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riki/pseuds/Riki), [Rae](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/raedear), and [R*vamp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deripmaver/pseuds/deripmaver) for alpha-reading!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Yuri had three days of mind-numbing boredom to prepare himself for what they would find in the clearing on the edge of Midori forest. Three whole days in the carriage next to the stinky dog, trading off the reins with his grandfather so the other could sleep. Three days travelling inland through the unchanging countryside, unable to stop his mind from wandering off to that fucking dungeon. The memory, nearly a month old already, keeps coming back like an itch he can’t stop scratching. 

His cousin, a skeleton crumpled in a cell smaller than the four-poster bed he used to sleep in, looking up at Yuri through the barred window with eyes that look more like they belong to the corpse that Yuri only glanced at on the day of the funeral. Yuri was there when they buried him in the Royal Cemetery—except apparently, they hadn’t. Apparently, Viktor had been buried somewhere else.

_ Alive. _

Yuri had been too horrified to scream. 

Now he’s just angry, angrier than he’s ever been in his life, angry enough to set an entire castle on fire and watch it burn. Angry enough to kill that fucking guard and Dmitri fucking Mikhailovich too, and watch them bleed out slowly.

He hasn’t done any of that yet, but he plans to. When they arrive at Midori forest he will find the clearing and his cousin’s body and he’ll  _ prove _ what those fuckers did to Viktor Nikiforov. He’ll join up with whatever revolutionaries he can find and overthrow everything Mikhailovich ever touched.

The dirt road along the edge of the forest has been mostly overgrown with weeds, some of which have been recently trampled by hoofprints and wagon wheels. When the tracks stop, Grandpa pulls on the reins. The clearing the guard left Viktor in must be close by. Yuri’s cousin was practically a sack of bones when Yuri last saw him, but the guard wasn’t that strong, and dead weight is difficult to carry.

Before Yuri and Nikolai even disembark the carriage, Viktor’s dog leaps over the side and begins sniffing at the ground. 

“This is it.”

“It must be,” his grandfather replies.

They follow Makkachin through the forest until they come upon a clearing. The dog takes off running through the tall grass, but Yuri walks. His hands balled into fists and his shoulders square, he approaches the tall tree on the other side of the clearing.

He sees the chains first, then the dried blood smeared over the bark of the tree. Makkachin runs in circles around the trunk, her nose pressed to the ground, whining so loudly you’d think she was dying.

The chains are broken. Where Yuri expected to find a rotting corpse, there is nothing.

Yuri’s knees buckle under him.

—

When Yuri and Viktor were children, their mothers used to take them to the beach in the summer. In the winter, Viktor and Aunt Vasilisa would return to the castle, but Yuri would go with his mother and grandfather to their hunting cabin in the woods on the southern border of Piter. They spent as much time there as possible before she died. It’s where Yuri learned to hunt from his grandfather—specifically, how to track a wounded animal through the underbrush.

He hasn’t had many opportunities to practice his tracking since his mother died and they practically moved into the castle, but between himself, his grandfather, and Makkachin, they manage to follow the trail from the clearing to the log cabin.

No smoke comes from the chimney. Thick curtains cover the windows, no light seeping out from inside. Makkachin runs right up the front steps and paws at the door, her nails gouging the wood. The lock on the door was designed to keep out animals but not humans, so Yuri and his grandfather gain entrance easily to the one-room home.

On the ground by the fire they find one futon and one make-shift mattress made of chair cushions. Splotches of reddish brown on the futon show that someone had bled there but tried hard to wash it out. 

Makkachin curls up next to the faded bloodstains and keens.

“He was here,” Grandpa observes, as if that wasn’t fucking clear enough already. “Whoever lives here must have found him.”

“Could be an axe-murderer for all we know. What kind of freak lives all alone in the middle of the woods?”

A closer look at the sleeping arrangements shows cloth covered in fur, like how Yuri’s bed looked after Viktor died and Makkachin cried all through the night unless he let her sleep next to him. 

“They have a dog. Whoever found him.”

For Viktor’s sake, he figures that’s a good thing. If Viktor did wake up after being found in the clearing—and didn’t die immediately afterward from hunger or infection of whatever the fuck wound it was that bled so much—he would have felt safer with a dog there to comfort him. He loved–  _ loves _ dogs so much he practically made it a personality trait. Hell, when Yuri found him, the only things he’d said that weren’t totally hysterical were  _ please Yuri you have to leave they can’t know you’re here please leave me please  _ and, of course, because he’s a self-sacrificing asshole,  _ take care of Makkachin please that’s all I need to know she’s alright. _

As if Yuri hadn’t been taking care of his stinking dog since the day he turned up dead.  _ Asshole. _

Yuri forces himself to stop thinking of the dog. The bigger concern now is where both Viktor and the cabin’s owner have gone. Probably nowhere good. They start snooping for clues.

There’s a small wooden desk in the corner of the cabin. In the drawer are a bunch of rolled-up pieces of paper tied off with pieces of twine. Yuri unties them all and begins to read.

_ Dear Yuuri, _

_ I know it is no use to tell you it wasn’t your fault. You have always been so stubborn, ever since you were a child, and I know you won’t believe me. I only hope that time will help you see that we’re right. We love you very much and we always will. Please try to remember that, no matter the terrible things that you convince yourself are true.  
_ _ We know you need time and space. We will gladly give that to you, even if we miss you terribly. But please don’t cut us off entirely, you know how I worry.  _

_ Love always, _

_ Mom _

_ — _

_ Yuuri— _

_ You promised Mom you’d write. I know you’re busy drowning in self-pity because you’ve convinced yourself that’s how things need to be, but they don’t. I don’t care what ‘time and space’ you think you need, I WILL come find you if you don’t write at least one QUALITY letter home every month. Got it?  _

_ (That’s not a rhetorical question. You have to reply. Seriously, they’re so worried that they’re going to the temple three times a day. You can be self centered sometimes but I know you’re not actually cruel. Don’t torture  _ _ us _ _ them like this.) _

_ —Mari _

_ — _

_ Hello Yuuri. Hiroko says you mentioned in your latest letter that you ran out of the salve I gave you when you left. Why didn’t you write me? I know he’s tiny but the bird can handle a little jar of salve. Or two or three. _

_ Anyway, I sent two more. Tell me when you run out. And of course tell me if you need anything else. Seriously, if I find out later that you got sick and decided to just tough it out instead of asking for help I will march down to wherever you’ve holed yourself up and shove the medicine down your throat myself. _

_ Don’t do anything stupid. _

_ Minako. _

Yuri skims the rest of the letters—more of the same, correspondence between this Yuuri person (a stupid-looking name, really, why the fuck is that extra “u” necessary) and his apparently semi-estranged family. Yuri obviously doesn’t have any of the Yuuri person’s replies, but he gleans enough information from the subtext of his family’s letters to put his mind at ease. Apparently, the man is self-centered and kind of neurotic, but in an endearing way, which Yuri has a hard time imagining. The man also seems kind, though, the sort of person Yuri would begrudgingly trust with taking care of his half-dead cousin. 

Which. Okay. That’s good, he guesses.

At the bottom of the drawer is a crumpled up piece of paper. Yuri straightens it out and tries to make out what had been written, before it all got violently crossed out. The handwriting gets messier and messier as the letter goes on.

~~_ Mom, _ ~~

~~_ I’m glad the harvest was good! My garden has been full of more squash than I can eat lately. Vicchan enjoys it, especially mixed with meat. Sorry this letter is a little late. Something came up. I don’t know if I should tell you about it or not, but I promise it’s nothing to worry about. I think I already know what to do about it. I don’t really know why I’m telling you this, then, or writing to you at all. I know what you’d say, anyway, which is partly why I’m doing it.  _ ~~

~~_ I love you all so much. I do want to come home, I don’t know why I feel like I can’t. I guess that none of that will matter soon enough.  _ ~~

Yuri flips the letter over. The back side has been used as scrap paper, a recipe scribbled in the top left corner, then a few notes about the weather and the growth of the garden written on a diagonal. It’s the bottom right portion that catches Yuri’s eye—a diagram, no, a  _ map  _ with a little compass drawn in the corner. There’s a hastily-drawn approximation of a house toward the left (west), and to the east a bunch of triangles that must signify mountains, and a river that runs parallel to them for a while before cutting through. On the other side of the mountain range is a star, circled.

A very sloppy line has been drawn east from the cabin to the circled star. 

Yuri goes outside of the cabin. To the east, he finds twigs and leaves that were trampled fairly recently, probably less than a week ago.

There will be a trail. He has a vague map  _ and _ a dog very familiar with their target’s scent. 

After telling Grandpa his plan and being squeezed into a hug so hard he sees stars, Grandpa heads back through the forest to the horse and carriage they left on the road. He’ll travel back to Piter to their hunting cabin and wait for Yuri to send word. 

That evening, Yuri prepares. He raids the cabin and garden for food to take with him and shoves it all into his pack. Before night falls, he takes some of the wood from the pile in the back of the cabin and makes a fire. He sleeps on the makeshift cushion bed and Makkachin on the futon.

They’ll leave first thing in the morning.

—

Viktor wakes in the morning with Yuuri’s hand on his hip and an exhausted sense of peace blanketing his body. The fire in front of them is nothing more than a pile of embers. In the trees above their heads some birds are chirping, the ones that haven’t yet migrated south for the winter; behind them, he can hear the steady babbling of the creek.

Then he remembers. He sits straight up, displacing Yuuri’s hand in the process, and reaches up to his own head to run his fingers over—

His hair, trimmed neat and even, as soft as silk against his skin. The ends tickle the back of his neck and the tops of his shoulders. Viktor gathers it in his hands all at once and lets it glide across his palms. He never wants to stop touching it, he wants to comb his fingers through the untangled strands until he believes it’s real, but he remembers his mother always chiding him for playing with it.  _ No wonder it gets so oily, sweetheart, you never stop touching it!  _

Viktor lets his hands fall. He turns around to look at Yuuri, who is blinking himself awake.

“G’morning,” Yuuri mumbles, rubbing at his eyes. Viktor sees the exact moment Yuuri looks up at Viktor and registers what he’s seeing—his eyes widening, his breath catching in his throat. 

“Your hair.”

“It feels wonderful.” Viktor tosses it over his shoulder. “Thank you, Yuuri.”

Yuuri pitches forward. “It’s  _ silver.” _

“It’s always been silver.”

“No, it looked—” a ripple of sadness crosses his face, “it looked grey. Before.”

“Ah.” Viktor schools his expression carefully. He takes one of his long bangs in his hands and stretches it in front of his face, going cross-eyed trying to see it. “That makes sense.”

_ “Silver,” _ Yuuri whispers. His hand flutters upward, unsure. “Can I…?”

“Yes. Of course, yes.”

Yuuri tucks the bangs behind Viktor’s ear. The memory of last night takes over Viktor’s body—fingers carding through his hair, carefully pulling apart the knots, nails gliding over his scalp while he tried the best he could to keep his whole body from convulsing in pleasure. He had felt like Makkachin must have when she used to roll onto her back, her tongue hanging out as he rubbed her belly.

Viktor can’t quite understand the look on Yuuri’s face as he pulls his hand back into his lap. Telling him was probably a mistake. It had felt right at the time, like debriding and irrigating a wound that had been left untreated. The pain was indescribable, but it felt good in a twisted way. 

Except now there is pain in Yuuri’s eyes when he looks at Viktor. There is an image in his head of Viktor as an impotent, melancholic king; as a body in a casket; as a thing left to rot in a cellar. Knowing little Yura had seen Viktor like that was bad enough, but Yuuri? 

Viktor should have kept his mouth shut. He shouldn’t have given in to the gnawing need to air his pain, because all this did was cause Yuuri pain of his own.

_ But. _ But but but. Yuuri isn’t looking at Viktor like a pile of refuse. He looks at him like something worth salvaging, just like he always has. The journey they are taking is proof enough of that.

“It’s beautiful,” Yuuri says with a smile like the sunrise behind his head.

The salve is a miracle, Viktor decides. After a year buried deep in the earth away from the sun, eating only tasteless, nutritionless gruel, it’s no wonder Viktor’s hair looked grey and lifeless. How the salve could reverse that overnight is completely beyond him. Maybe Yuuri’s godmother is a witch. Viktor honestly wouldn’t care if she was, because he feels human again for the first time in far too long.

They pack up their camp and head east again, following the creek upstream into the mountains. As the ground beneath them grows steeper, Viktor’s legs begin to burn. He’d gained a lot of strength since they left Yuuri’s cabin, but not in these muscles. His lungs heave with the effort. Even Vicchan seems exhausted, his little legs struggling to make it over the larger rocks that stand in their way. 

Yuuri walks behind him instead of leading the way, no doubt worrying he’ll have to catch him. They take periodic breaks for Viktor’s sake whenever he thinks he can’t go any further, but he always gets back up again, determined to keep moving.

As they hike, the air gets colder. It’s not just the elevation—there’s a cold front coming in from the north, warning of the first storm of winter. They fill the canteen with the water from the creek and it’s so cold that it gives Viktor a headache to drink it. As they trudge onward, Viktor idly wishes he’d had time to finish knitting that scarf.

They find a level clearing just before sunset to set up camp for the night. They pitch the tent and shiver by the fire until it’s time to go to sleep. With the cold wind battering their safe haven and the temperature dropping below freezing, they waste no time curling up together on the same bedroll, under the same furs. 

“Viktor.”

“Hmm.”

“When you’re having a nightmare, is it alright for me to wake you up?”

“Yes. Of course, but you shouldn’t have to do that.”

With Viktor’s back pressed up against Yuuri’s front, he can feel Yuuri shrug. “But I’m here and I don’t mind. You shouldn’t have to suffer.”

“Okay,” Viktor whispers. He wiggles his body backwards to press even closer to the warmth of Yuuri’s body. He hears Yuuri’s breath catch. “Then please wake me up, Yuuri.”

An arm wraps low around Viktor’s waist; a hand drapes over the back of Viktor’s, uncaring of the rusted metal around his wrist. “I will. I’m here. Sleep well.”

What Viktor would have given for this only a month ago. He would have traded a weeks’ worth of food for even the faintest brush of a touch like Yuuri’s. He would have let them douse the torch in the hallway and leave him in the dark. He would have humiliated himself; he would have spread himself out on the bloodstained floor and  _ begged.  _

Yuuri asks for nothing. There are no strings attached to his kindness. He holds Viktor close like a loved one to be treasured and promises to stand beside him with his weapon drawn to protect him for as long as Viktor wants him.

Viktor wants him forever. He never wants to let him go. The idea that he could have that is too good to be true, but he clings to it anyway. 

—

When he has a nightmare, Yuuri wakes him. He whispers soothing words in his ear, says  _ go back to sleep, I’m here, you’re safe  _ and glides his fingers back and forth over the back of Viktor’s hand. Vicchan licks at his face and curls up underneath his chin. 

Viktor lets out the lingering fear on a shuddering breath. He breathes in Yuuri’s comfort and the smell of Vicchan’s fur. 

He sleeps.

—

The next day, the storm strikes.

Around noon, the sun falls for good behind a thick blanket of clouds. They continue trudging up the mountain as the snow begins to fall, light and flakey at first until the wind picks up and the world around them turns grey. A branch whips in the wind and cuts a line across Yuuri’s cheek. The sight of Yuuri’s blood makes Viktor nauseous and he tries to take deep breaths, but the air is so bitingly cold and his exhausted lungs won’t cooperate.

“We have to find shelter!” Yuuri yells over the howling wind. He’s only a few feet from Viktor, but hardly visible through the violent swirls of snow. Viktor sees his head whip back and forth. “Vicchan? Vicchan!”

Every bit of warmth leaves Viktor’s body at once.

“He was just here, he was right next to me, I—”

“Stay here, don’t move!” Yuuri shouts. “I’m going to go find him!”

Yuuri leaves, disappearing into the blizzard, and terror wraps its icy fingers around Viktor’s heart. The battering wind threatens to bowl him over, knocking him off balance so he stumbles right into a tree. He clings to the trunk, circling the tree until it blocks the worst of the wind—

And then he hears it, a sharp whine off to his left,  _ Vicchan, _ it must be Vicchan, but that’s not the direction Yuuri went to look for him! The dog is so tiny, the size of Makkachin as a puppy, and just as sweet and probably scared and he remembers  _ perfectly _ the terror that had seized him when he woke up in that prison with his hair shorn off and thought  _ Makkachin, who will take care of Makkachin? _

The snow is already up to Viktor’s ankles, and Vicchan is  _ so tiny.  _ So vulnerable, so precious, what will happen to him if he’s just left there to freeze? Viktor can’t accept that, he won’t, and he takes off before he can stop himself, anchoring himself to tree after tree so he won’t fall over. He strains his ears to hear that sound again, but there’s only the wind whistling in the trees, was that what Viktor heard the first time? 

Oh no, oh Spirits, maybe he hadn’t heard Vicchan at all, Yuuri will come back and find him gone and Viktor turns around to go back the way he came but the world is white, so white, swirling and disorienting and he feels like he did when the torch burned out, leaving him in darkness so complete he couldn’t help but scream, unsure which way was up, down, whether the emptiness in front of him was actually air or a void of nothingness and if he stepped forward, would he fall and not stop falling and he’s  _ falling,  _ stumbling and falling and landing in a pit of snow that sucks him right up. It burns his skin. It seeps through his clothes. He tries to move but his limbs won’t obey, his  _ lungs _ won’t obey. He can’t breathe and he can’t see and he can’t move and Yuuri had said  _ stay here _ but he didn’t, and he couldn’t even find little Vicchan.

A horrible calm washes over him all at once, that shutting-down of a body that knows it’s helpless. He’s weak and frail and  _ still chained,  _ his arms are so heavy. The world is white. The world is red behind his eyelids. 

The world is black.

The world is black.

Someone is dragging him.

He thinks he hears a voice say  _ Viktor, wake up, please wake up, _ but it could just be the wind whistling in the trees. 

—

“Viktor, please, can you hear me,  _ please,”  _ begs a voice.

It feels like a dream, like one of those nightmares where he’s back in the cell and the torch has gone out and the guard has stopped coming to feed him and he wastes away in the freezing cold, watching as his body shuts down.

But someone is touching him. Caressing his face like his mother had when he was a child and he woke up fearing monsters. Perhaps he’s not dreaming. Perhaps he’s only waking.

The hands on his face are cold. Everything is cold, but there’s no wind. He can  _ hear  _ the wind howling, distantly, but he cannot feel it. He opens his eyes to almost complete darkness.

Yuuri is there—Viktor recognizes those arms, the chilled breath against his skin. Yuuri is holding him, Yuuri is freezing, too, but they’re both wrapped tightly beneath the animal furs, sharing as much warmth as they can. 

Feeling trapped, Viktor pokes his head out from under the blanket to breathe fresh air, no matter how cold. They’re inside a shallow, stone cave tucked in the side of the mountain. They have no wood to make a fire, so the inside of the cave is cold and wet and dark, but it’s a good shelter. Outside, the world is still white and whirling.

Something wriggles beneath the covers and lets out a little bark.

“Vicchan,” Viktor croaks, wrapping his arms around the puppy curled up beneath the blankets. He cannot see him, but his fur is unmistakable.

Yuuri pokes his head out from under the blankets, too, careful not to let out what little heat they’ve managed to trap beneath it. Yuuri had set them up against the back wall of the cave, a waterproof tarp beneath them and the furs wrapped around them. Yuuri leans half up against the wall, Viktor curled next to him. 

Yuuri’s hands brush against Viktor’s, both nestled in Vicchan’s fur. “You gave us such a bad scare, didn’t you, Vicchan? And so did you.”

Viktor realizes belatedly that Yuuri is talking to him. He shivers.

“I thought I heard him crying.”

“He wasn’t too far behind us. He’d gotten stuck. When I came back and saw you were gone...”

“I know. I’m sorry, Yuuri.”

Yuuri sighs. The cut on his cheekbone from the branch is red but no longer bleeding. “It’s okay. Of course it’s okay. I found you, didn’t I?”

Viktor exhales a shaky breath and bows his head, his brow resting against Yuuri’s collarbone. He tries as hard as he can to push the terror away and let in the feeling of safety that comes with being so close to Yuuri, just like he had after his nightmare last night. It doesn’t work. The panic pumps through his heart and twists around in his gut and won’t let him calm. 

He could have died. He could have left Yuuri all alone out here. And there was nothing he could do about it, because his body was weak and sickly and that’s the whole reason they were caught in this storm in the first place—

“It’s alright,” Yuuri whispers, his breath warm against the crown of Viktor’s head like he’d bent down to press a kiss to his hair. Yuuri’s hands stroke up and down Viktor’s sides, from his underarm to his hip with a gentle, soothing pressure.

“Please don’t stop,” Viktor begs, his voice cracking.

“I won’t.”

Yuuri keeps his word. He runs his hands over Viktor’s body like a man on a mission, every pass of his palm leaving Viktor’s skin just a fraction of a degree warmer. Behind Viktor’s eyes, a burning heat grows all on its own. Viktor squeezes his eyes shut as hard as he can. The burn travels down to his jaw and makes him clench his teeth, then down his throat to his chest, cracking his ribs under the pressure. 

He shakes as his body collapses. Yuuri’s thumb caresses Viktor’s cheek and comes away wet.

Viktor cries soundlessly, just like always, but the sobs take over his whole body like the night after his coronation. He convulses with them, his face crumpling and his shoulders shaking and his hands grasping for something to hold onto—they find Yuuri’s sweater, his fingers balling up the carefully-knitted wool. The heat he so desperately needs leaves his body in the tears that burn his frozen cheeks on the way down his face. 

He doesn’t make a sound, though. He only ever made a sound in that cell, because there was no one in the world who could hear him.

(He’d screamed.)

He can’t pull in enough air. Eventually he’s gasping, clinging to Yuuri, no longer quiet the way he used to be, and he wants to beg  _ help help help me  _ but he can’t  _ breathe— _

“Viktor, focus on my breathing. You’re panicking, and I need you to try to breathe with me.” Yuuri uncurls Viktor’s balled fingers and presses his palms flat to Yuuri’s chest as it rises and falls in a steady rhythm. “Breathe with me, that’s right. You’re alright.”

Yuuri takes long and steady breaths. He’s so sure, so  _ certain, _ like he’s done this for someone a million times before. His even voice breaks through the terror. Yuuri knows what he’s doing. Yuuri says he’s alright. So Viktor is alright. He is safe. 

Yuuri is holding him. Yuuri won’t let go.

“I’m– I’m so–”

A hand strokes the back of Viktor’s head. Viktor takes a deep, unsteady breath in with Yuuri and lets out a horrible noise. He buries his face in Yuuri’s neck. 

“I’m so  _ angry.” _

Yuuri strokes his hair. Viktor quakes. Brokenly, he whispers,

“How could he do this to me?”

There is no answer to that question. Power, greed, an unfathomable ability to be callously cruel to another human being—a boy he once said he  _ thought of like a nephew,  _ no less. All of that is correct, but it is not an answer, or at least not one that Viktor needs to hear. Viktor just needs someone to hold him as he cries, and that is what Yuuri gives him.

Viktor will regain his strength. His wounds will heal and the chains will come off and he’ll be able to be a person again one day, even if it feels like a far-fetched dream right now. But that year will never leave him. The helplessness and loneliness and gnawing terror, so acute even in his memory that he thinks he might throw up—he can never forget that. For the rest of his life, however long that may be, he will know what it is like to rot.

All he can do is cry and trust Yuuri to hold him, so he does. It’s a wretched feeling, letting the anger and fear and bone-deep sorrow take the reins of his body and shake it apart—but it’s like the pain of telling Yuuri what had happened to him. A necessary pain.

A healing pain. 

Eventually, the pain runs its course, leaving him warm and still in Yuuri’s arms. He’s wrung out, too exhausted to panic and awash with clarity he never could have achieved before.

He’s here. He’s alive. He has Yuuri. There are so many things to be grateful for, when he really thinks about it. He pulls back, lifting his head from Yuuri’s shoulder to look him in the eyes and thank him.

For some reason, there’s only one suitable way to thank Yuuri that Viktor can think of, and it doesn’t involve words.

He kisses him. He kisses him with every ounce of devotion and gratitude and love that overflows from his chest. 

When he pulls away, he sees uncertainty in Yuuri’s eyes. A little bit of panic seeps back.

“I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

Yuuri is already shaking his head by the time Viktor’s mouth forms around the apology.

“No, no, I don’t mind. I… I liked it, Viktor, of course I liked it. I just don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“You aren’t.”

“You’re upset. You just had a traumatic experience. Just because I’m the one that saved you—”

“Yuuri, listen to me, please.” Viktor takes both of Yuuri’s hands in his. “There was no one. For a whole year,  _ no one.” _

“Which is exactly why I shouldn’t—”

“Wait. Listen.” Viktor takes a breath. He wonders if he has the strength to say this out loud. “After Yuri found me and the guard realized what had happened, Mikhailovich came. He unlocked the door to my cell and came inside, knelt next to me, and grabbed my chin in his hand. I was terrified of what he was going to do, but I was also so scared that he would just… leave me. That he’d let go and stand up and walk away and I’d go back to being alone again, and I  _ couldn’t, _ Yuuri. I would have given anything for him to leave, but I also would have given anything for him to stay, even if it hurt.”

Yuuri’s face crumples in pain. Viktor reaches out and presses his hand to Yuuri’s cheek, cradling it gently and being careful not to touch the cut on his cheekbone. He’ll have to put some salve on it later. 

“But you,” Viktor continues. He almost laughs. “Your touch is the simplest thing in the world. I’m not conflicted. I’m not scared, I’m not desperate. You won’t take advantage of me. I just  _ want you.”  _

Yuuri ducks his head. “You hardly even know me.”

“I know plenty.”

“But I’m not…”

“I don’t care what you think you’ve done. Unless you were deliberately cruel, it won’t change how I think about you. And I _ know _ you’re not cruel. You never could be.”

Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut for a moment before looking up at Viktor. He looks like he might cry. “I want you, too,” he whispers. For a long moment, they lock eyes, Yuuri’s sparkling with unshed tears and Viktor’s rimmed with red. 

And then they both deflate, every bit of tension leaving their body.  _ I want you  _ and  _ I want you too _ ring in their ears and they exhale into each other’s mouths, the sheer intimacy of it a relief after weeks of holding back. In Yuuri’s arms, with Yuuri’s mouth on his, Viktor feels  _ human,  _ and with his mouth on Yuuri’s he feels a little less helpless than he did before. 

This he can do. This he wants more than anything and revels in knowing Yuuri wants it in return. He sinks into Yuuri’s arms, cups the side of Yuuri’s head, and they both laugh and pull apart when Vicchan sticks his little head out from under the blanket, demanding he be included. Their heads rest together as they pet the little dog wedged between their bodies. Beneath the blanket, their ankles tangle together.

Viktor wants this more than anything. And Spirits, somehow he has it.

—

It is impractical to hike down a mountain holding hands with the man beside you, especially when yesterday’s blizzard dumped so much snow it comes practically up to your knees. Knowing this, Viktor and Yuuri don’t attempt it. But they would have under different circumstances, Viktor is confident. 

They take turns carrying Vicchan, because the poor thing would otherwise get lost in the snow. The trail down the eastern side of the mountain is gentler than the western side, a set of zig-zagging switchbacks that are far less strenuous to walk down. The lower they get, the less snow there is on the ground. Eventually, they’re able to let Vicchan walk on his own, though they both keep a close eye on him after yesterday’s scare.

Tomorrow they will arrive at the home of the Forest Guardians. Viktor can see the nerves buzzing under Yuuri’s skin. He has no idea what has Yuuri so nervous, but he doesn’t ask. Yuuri clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, and he’ll find out soon enough.

That night around the fire, holding hands, Viktor tells him:

“You said you would stay with me.”

_ I’ll stand by your side with a crossbow for as long as you’ll let me, I don’t care, but no one will ever take away your freedom again. _

“I did.”

“For as long as I let you.”

“Yes.”

“Well I don’t plan on ever sending you away.”

Yuuri laughs, loud and happy.

“That’s alright with me.”

“Promise me, Yuuri?”

“Promise what?”

“That no matter what happens tomorrow, you’ll stay with me?”

Viktor watches Yuuri’s face for any hint of distress, any sign that that might be a problem. What will it cost for the Forest Guardians to remove Viktor’s chains? What is Yuuri planning? 

But Yuuri just smiles softly, leans over, and presses a kiss to Viktor’s cheek.

“I promise,” he whispers.

—

They arrive just before sunset on the eleventh day after leaving Yuuri’s cabin. The Forest Guardians live in a valley lined with pine trees with a creek running through it—a different creek than the one on the other side of the mountains, but similarly shallow and clear and cold. They follow the creek south for a few hours until they come across the village—a collection of pine log cabins clustered around the bank of the creek. Smoke billows from the chimneys. 

Somehow, Viktor had expected the Forest Guardians to live in a cave or ravine or hollowed-out tree. He didn’t expect them to need fires to keep warm or a nearby creek for fresh water. 

Except he remembers what Yuuri had said, all those weeks back when he mentioned the Guardians for the first time.  _ Spirits?  _ Viktor had assumed.

_ They have… spiritual powers, _ Yuuri had corrected.

There are faces— _ human faces _ in the windows of the cabins, drawing back curtains and looking utterly shocked at the two trespassers that have walked right into their village. Doors everywhere begin to open. Yuuri doesn’t look at them—his eyes are fixed on one of the houses nearest to the creek. A woman stands in the doorway, shock written plainly on her face. 

“Yuuri?” she gasps. She takes off running toward him. A man and a younger woman are standing in the doorway now, looking equally shocked.

Yuuri’s face splits into a smile, his eyes filling with tears.

He croaks,  _ “Mom.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! Let me know what you thought, if you're so inclined <3 
> 
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